2023-10-31 14:11:00
This Friday, a private event around tuning sowed chaos in the Mons entity. While 50 to 100 vehicles were expected, some 2,000 vehicles and around 8,000 people from all over Belgium and even France made the trip, causing significant traffic congestion and requiring a significant deployment of the police in order to best manage a situation which has clearly overwhelmed the organizers.
This Monday, the police zone and the city announced that a meeting with the organizers was planned and that “pending a reflection on the phenomenon and a joint decision from the administrative authority and the police services , demonstrations of this kind will be prohibited.” This Tuesday, it was the leader of the opposition, Georges-Louis Bouchez (Mons en Mieux) who reacted to the recent excesses.
The latter announces his intention to table a motion at the next municipal council to discuss the criteria adopted during large-scale events and to see how to “better frame” things. “The events of this Friday evening simply illustrate the failings of the municipal college and the total absence of effective event and security management,” believes Georges-Louis Bouchez.
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For the latter, the fact that the event is organized by a private person does not change the situation. “It’s too easy to blame the organizer when something goes wrong and accept responsibility when everything goes well. The city did not organize but the authorizations were granted. The assessment of the risks or the impact of the event on mobility in Mons, in particular, was largely underestimated.”
And to continue: “If we are not capable of managing 2,000 people and 8,000 people on a site, how will the city manage the million people expected throughout the month of December for My Snow Heart? This represents more than 30,000 people in the city every day! This is simply proof that once again, the municipal college is throwing out figures all over the place just to give itself visibility.”
Georges-Louis Bouchez believes that things “must change”. “You need the right people in the right place. The mayor cannot want to manage everything alone, nor can he continue to navigate on sight. The entire chain needs to be reviewed, structures need to be modified so that the city has a better vision of future events, their impacts, risks, expected flows.”
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Finally, the Montois points out a final “inconsistency” in the policy pursued by the city. “The mayor’s decree provides that gatherings of more than five people are prohibited in the station area but authorizes a demonstration of support for the Palestinian population or authorizes the installation of a circus as part of Mons coeur en Neige . It’s incoherent and surreal to see that there are double standards.”
Words that irritate the city. “It’s always the same old story. What credibility can we still give to Georges-Louis Bouchez when we see the nonsense and false information that he conveys and which prove a complete ignorance of the rules, the file, the field? It’s quite appalling,” we were told, adding that the event was private and that the organizer was overwhelmed by its success.
”We don’t see how this event requires calling into question the entire event policy of the city when it is proving its worth. It’s taking people for fools to make such shortcuts or to draw a parallel with Mons Cœur en Neige: at the Grand Large, everyone arrives through the same entrance. This is not the case in town and the expected million visitors are spread over a month and across several sites. What we remember from our side is the success of our market and the feedback we get from visitors on social networks.”
As for the circus and the potential non-compliance with the mayor’s decree, the city specifies that the latter will end at the end of this month of November and that if it had been installed before, it would not have been under the influence of the order since it is a specifically authorized event following an official decision by the authorities.
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