2023-12-01 19:45:38
Ecolo finally obtained, on Thursday evening, a vote in principle to authorize the wearing of the veil in the administration in Anderlecht. The episode should leave its mark.
This is a first in Brussels: the municipal council ofAnderlecht approved, Thursday evening, a text of principle which authorizes the wearing of the veil in administration, thus joining the Flemish municipalities of Mechelen and Ghent. This might, a few months before the elections, inspire other municipalities. And the violence which surrounded this debate will likely leave its mark.
It’s here new environmental leader Nadia KammachiAlderwoman Ecolo in charge of equal opportunities, who lit the fire, by submitting to the municipal council a motion co-signed with the PTB to authorize convictional signs in municipal administration, without restriction. An attempt at forceful passage that its majority partners, namely the PS, Défi and Les Engagés, little appreciated, while a working group had been set up on the subject, of which the municipal councilors have still not not received the conclusions.
Violence and threats
Tension rose, with avalanches of messages calling on elected officials to vote “rightly”, sometimes accompanied by threats.
Tension has risen, with a petition for authorization to wear the veil, and in recent days, avalanches of messages calling on elected officials to vote “rightly”, sometimes accompanied by threats. It was finally behind closed doors, with police suits in front of the building, that the municipal council met.
The attempt to bring the majority together around a common text has failed, and it is a amended version, filed by the PS, Vooruit and Les Engagés, which was adopted. It introduces a exception to the authorization of confessional signs for functions “which include a notion of authority and are in contact with the public”, provides for the establishment of a working group to prepare the modification of the work regulations, and asks the Region to legislate so that the same principles apply in municipal administrations, para -municipal and regional.
“We had asked, in vain, to postpone this municipal council, to send the message that violence and threats were not political tools.”
Ecolo abstained on this text, believing that it did not go far enough. Défi and the N-VA voted once morest, while the MR withdrew. “We had asked, in vain, to postpone this municipal council, to send the message that violence and threats were not political tools. Unfortunately, democracy has lost,” said Gaëtan Van Goidsenhoven.
In the majority too, some are shaken. “What happened yesterday is terrible, and gives catastrophic image to the citizen“, deplores an alderman who prefers to remain anonymous. “Not only did Ecolo create an alternative majority, but he did so by convening the PTB on an explosive and divisive subject”, regrets François De Smet, president of Défi.
Clear GoodMove episode
Several political leaders accuse Ecolo of having gone it alone to try to reconquer an Arab-Muslim community in which the GoodMove episode, particularly violent in Anderlecht, left its mark. But the local initiative was able to count on the explicit support from co-president Rajae Maouane, who was clearly delighted with Thursday’s vote, which allows us to “take a step forward”, even if she regrets that the text voted on, unlike that proposed by Ecolo, does not set an implementation date. For her, the ban on the veil is discrimination, which hinders the inclusion of a certain number of women within the municipal administration.
“Ecolo puts pressure wherever he can, on the margins, without real democratic debate, because he needs a totem as the elections approach.”
“While we have a royal decree of 1937 which is clear on the neutrality of appearance of civil servants, Ecolo puts pressure wherever he can, on the margins, without real democratic debatebecause he needs a totem as the elections approach, even if it is a plastic totem, since what was voted in Anderlecht is only a motion”, judges François De Smet.
An accusation of electoralism that behind the scenes, at Ecolo, we are trying to dismantle. “Gender equality and freedom are fundamental values at Ecolo, argues a senior Brussels official. What happened in Anderlecht was a local confusion. If we played the communitarianism card, we would not have been so clear on Evras, and we would not be as forward on LGBTQIA+.”
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