Germany's new parliament met for the first time Tuesday after last month's election, ushering in a post-Merkel era that is more feminine, younger and more ethnically diverse.
After 31 years as an MP, outgoing Angela Merkel left the front-row seat reserved for the government and took her place above the chamber in an "honorary loge" as caretaker chancellor until a new government is in place.
The centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) won the most votes in the September 26 general election, and their candidate Olaf Scholz is working to cobble together a ruling coalition by early December.
While the top job is expected to pass from Germany's first woman chancellor to a man, the Bundestag lower house's powerful speaker Wolfgang Schaeuble handed off the gavel to Baerbel Bas -- only the third woman to hold the post.
Schaeuble, 79, who has served in parliament for half a century, told deputies that democracies stood a chance against "authoritarian" competitors only by ensuring that "diversity of points of view" in their societies are respected.
"We can disagree," he said, but conflicts must be fought "fairly, according to rules". German political debate has become increasingly "intolerant of differences", he added.
The SPD chose Bas, 53, a relatively low-profile MP, in part to ensure that one of Germany's top political jobs is still held by a woman after Merkel leaves the stage.
"It does our country good for citizens to see that a woman is in charge at the heart of our democracy," she said, while regretting that so few women have held the job in the post-war era.
The new Bundestag, which has grown to a record 736 seats, boasts a number of firsts for the EU's most populous country, although activists say it still has far to go to reflect the nation's growing diversity.
'NEED DIVERSITY'
The first-ever black woman MP, Eritrean-born Awet Tesfaiesus, 47, took her seat among the Greens' parliamentary group.
Having arrived in Germany at age 10, Tesfaiesus went on to become a lawyer defending the rights of immigrants and asylum seekers.
"We need diversity in this country," she told AFP. "We need people who have been victims of racism to be better represented."
Tesfaiesus said she wants to fight the "label of foreigner" that sticks to many despite having a German passport.
"You feel latent racism everywhere," she said.
Tesfaiesus told German media she launched her political career after an attack near Frankfurt in February 2020, when a far-right gunman shot dead nine people at a shisha bar and a cafe.
She joins Senegalese-born Karamba Diaby -- a Social Democrat who was until now Germany's only black MP -- and his party colleague Armand Zorn, who emigrated from Cameroon at the age of 12 and just won his first direct mandate in parliament.
The number of foreign-born deputies or those with at least one parent born abroad has climbed to 83, making up 11.3 percent of the Bundestag, up from 8.2 percent in the last assembly.
'FAR BEHIND'
The new class of deputies also marks a generational watershed, with a quarter of lawmakers aged under 40.
But despite its broader representation, the Bundestag, with its overwhelmingly white and male make-up, still lags in mirroring the modern face of Germany.
Deniz Nergiz, head of the Federal Council on Immigration and Integration, which promotes political participation in immigrant communities, told AFP that parliament was still "far behind" the 26 percent of people of foreign origin "across German society".
The same is true for women, even after 16 years with Merkel as the first woman chancellor at the helm. They make up only 24 percent of deputies, up from 20 percent previously.
The gender figures vary widely among the parties, with the Greens boasting a 59 percent majority of women, including two transgender women.
By contrast, the far-right Alternative for Germany counts only 13 percent of women among its ranks.
