“When I drive through Molenbeek I don't feel I'm in Belgiumâ€
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Loading... - Louis Peeters
- 27 Apr 2022
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Flemish socialist leader Conner Rousseau has courted controversy telling TV weekly Humo that he doesn’t feel at home when he drives through the Brussels inner city suburb of Molenbeek. Mr Rousseau is eager to focus on migration and favours making Dutch lessons and childcare mandatory.
“When I drive through Molenbeek I don’t feel I’m in Belgium” is the headline used on the Flemish socialist’s interview. Speaking later on VRT radio he explains: “I am the leader of Vooruit, the Flemish socialist party, who wants to say things as they are. Above all I’m calling for a healthy social mix. In some places this has gone. If you end up in areas where only Arabic is spoken or there is insufficient command of the language of the region, then you’re not stimulating children to learn the language.”
Mr Rousseau is highly concerned about language skills in Flanders: “It’s about the future of many young people. You can’t do well at school and acquire opportunities on the labour market if you don’t speak the language.
The Vooruit leader claims that because of the teacher shortage some teachers are teaching in Arabic in Brussels because they don’t speak French.
Jef Van Damme, Vooruit alderman in Molenbeek, says his leader’s comments are very out of place.
Karine Lalieux, the pensions minister and a Francophone socialist, takes to Twitter in Dutch to say “Brussels is Belgium at its most beautiful, rich in culture, in diversity and with a warm welcome. Rousseau’s comments are shocking and bear evidence to the sad ignorance about the Brussels’ reality among many Belgians”.
Brussels minister for multilingualism and finances Sven Gatz (Flemish liberal) notes that the number of children in Flemish schools in Brussels has never been so high. “Never have so many adults been learning Dutch. Bashing Brussels, beating Molenbeek with a stick is too simple” he adds.
Flemish minister for Brussels, the Christian democrat Benjamin Dalle, speaks of pronouncements that are beneath contempt: “Take me to the Flemish school in Brussels where lessons are taught in Arabic” he tweets.
In a reaction Mr Rousseau says that after the Christian democrats have been in charge of childcare for two decades it has never been so expensive. He favours mandatory childcare for all from the age of 6 months. Read More...
