2023-09-22 04:45:00
“If the MR continues to have a discourse close to the extreme right, it will be complicated to govern with them”
At the MR, we don’t take offense. And we especially point out the disconnection of the PS with the field, the neighborhoods. “Let us first remember that the Brussels Region does not belong to them,” notes the president of the Brussels MR David Leisterh. Above all, he sees it as a classic method on the part of socialists: “to discredit others so as not to talk regarding their record”.
“On Monday, they say that we are far-right, on Tuesday that we are racist, on Wednesday that it is the fault of the Swede, on Thursday, it is once more the fault of someone other and on Friday, they say nothing since they are for the four-day week…” More broadly, David Leisterh believes that the PS’s discourse on the “so-called right-wing of liberal rhetoric” comes from the fact that “we have highlighted the growing insecurity in certain Brussels neighborhoods. What everyone sees, not just the MR. Above all, I notice that the PS radar is no longer transmitting in these neighborhoods. They don’t hear the people who are suffering. For the largest party in Brussels, it is deeply worrying,” comments the Boitsfortois while recognizing that the hardening of the MR’s speech comes from a certain anger. “Every day brings more bad news. Yes, we are angry regarding the situation in Brussels. This anger sometimes translates into harsher but totally assumed words. ”
Pascal Smet: “The real problem at the Gare du Midi is the undocumented: we must expel them very actively”
“The PS is no longer a secular party”
Its party president Georges-Louis Bouchez goes in the same direction. “At the time of Jean Gol, Didier Reynders, Charles Michel, the MR was already accused of right-wing. Since we have been turning right, I think we have turned around, so we have returned to our origins.”
The Montois is especially worried regarding the communitarian policy pursued by the PS. “The Brussels PS is no longer a secular party. The communitarian line won. The last resister of neutrality in the PS is Julien Uyttendaele. And he got crossed by his party president. I am very surprised that Paul Magnette, political scientist, high-flying academic, ulbist, accepts that communitarian considerations take precedence to this extent in his party.
On this point, the MR recalls its line of conduct, “an impassable red line”, on the wearing of signs of conviction in an executive or in the administration. “There is no margin for that in our country.” Even on the stunning before the slaughter of animals, which upset all the Brussels parties last year, MR included? “The MR is the only party where no one voted once morest,” recalls David Leisterh. “At the MR, we have always had the same discourse in Uccle as in Molenbeek, Charleroi or Liège.”
The burkini authorized in the Schaerbeek swimming pool reopened from this Monday
So what regarding the many women who refuse to swim in one-piece swimsuits in Brussels swimming pools? “We must not stigmatize them,” continues David Leisterh. Which reminds us that “these women are constrained by religious regulations. Our position is to put aside all religious prescriptions. We fought for years to remove crosses from schools, the ancestors of the PS and Ecolo were at the forefront on this subject, it is not to make religious symbols reappear today.
Georges-Louis Bouchez continues: “today, we constantly make reasonable accommodations. In swimming pools, in terms of animal welfare, convictional signs. An animal welfare rule cannot bow to religion”.
Saliha Raiss, new alderman in Molenbeek: “I invite Georges-Louis Bouchez to come and have coffee with me”
“There are too many center-right parties in Belgium”
Animal welfare is precisely the credo of the latest recruit of the Brussels MR: Ariane de Lobkowicz, the youngest MP in the country and now ex-Défi. After Sadik Koksal, he is the second Défi-MR defector. From there to talking regarding a takeover bid for the Brussels party? “No,” assures Georges-Louis Bouchez. “We are not poaching and I have great respect for François De Smet and his party.” Ideas not so far from the MR, underlines the Montois, who nevertheless calls for a rebalancing of political forces.
Mercato at Défi, which is recruiting MP Emin Ozkara: “At the PS, you had to go into your community and engage in clientelism. But that’s not me.”
“The French-speaking political landscape needs a center-right force of 30-35%. Without this, no possibility of reform is possible in Brussels and Wallonia. What is the point of that, when we define ourselves as a center-right party like Défi, to supplement a PS/Ecolo majority? It is obvious that the dispersion of center-right or center forces plays into the hands of the left. We are in phase on numerous files with Défi. What differentiates the MR and Défi, or even Les Engagés, is too weak to justify systematic alliances with the PS and Ecolo.”
No (no longer) question of merger with Défi or Les Engagés, “but my conviction has not changed: there are one or two parties too many in Flanders as in French-speaking Belgium in the sense that this does not create a sufficient difference with the existing offer. This political fragmentation, especially on the French-speaking side, plays into the hands of the PS. It is not normal for parties which agree on so many points to spend their time courting the PS and Ecolo. I am convinced of a necessary recomposition of the political landscape to allow Brussels and Wallonia the reforms they need. These parties are intended, at a minimum, to join forces to try to influence issues such as the neutrality of the State, economic reform, the issue of employment, energy, mobility. ”
The annus horribilis of Georges-Louis Bouchez
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