In an interview to the magazine Humo, the leader of the Flemish centre-left party Vooruit, Conner Rousseau, doubled down on comments he made about the municipality of Molenbeek in April. He repeated his viewpoint that "I don't feel at home in Molenbeek."
On Tuesday, Humo magazine published their interview with Conner Rousseau, during which he went over comments he made to the outlet in an earlier interview this year.
In late April, Rousseau had declared to the magazine that he did not feel as if he was in Belgium while driving through the Brussels municipality of Molenbeek.
Reinforced opinions
These comments had drawn the ire of various municipal figures, such as the mayor of Molenbeek Catherine Moureaux and Jef Van Damme, a councillor from the same party as Rousseau. The latter even proposed to show him round Molenbeek the next Rousseau was around.
However, despite accepting Van Damme's offer, this visit apparently reinforced the Flemish social democratic leader's viewpoint as he doubled down on his comments to Humo, "to which I proposed a solution: to make sure that everyone speaks our language and that there are more opportunities in education."
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For Rousseau, his comments were in no way meant as a personal attack towards the citizens of the municipality. While "I don't feel at home in Molenbeek," he added that "my message was that we need to improve the conditions in these neighbourhoods by investing in language, childcare and education."
Furthermore, those who criticised Rousseau's choice of words suspect that this his way of attracting Flemish nationalist voters, with a view of forming a coalition at the regional level with the N-VA.
Brussels politicians push back
The comments have also provoked a strong reaction from Brussels MPs. Ridouane Chahid directly called into question the leader of Vooruit on Twitter. "My dear Conner, where and what is 'home'? With this kind of statement, Flanders does not need the far right anymore...."
Sven Gatz, the Brussels Finance Minister also took to social media to condemn Rousseu's reiteration of the inflammatory comments, stating that "only dead people and fools never change their minds."
