2023-10-27 04:30:00
The end of the legislature is approaching. What are your personal plans for 2024?
I am the lead candidate for the Federal government, for Brussels (Editor’s note: the regional general assembly of Écolo in Brussels will have to validate her candidacy in December, but she is the only candidate for the position).
There was doubt about your intentions. Why this choice ?
At a time when figures, particularly women like Gwendolyn Rutten or Catherine Fonck, are leaving politics, and knowing that my personal journey has not been easy, I was very hesitant to continue in politics. In May-June, I was still hesitant… But my commitment didn’t come out of nowhere. It is first of all a commitment for mine. In July, I lost my dad. It happens to everyone, obviously (his eyes glaze over, his voice quivers, Editor’s note). When my mother put away her things, we found an envelope in which he had folded the first interview I gave in 2009. It was with Vincent Rocour, in La Libre Belgique. It was a shock to me to learn that my dad had gone to buy the newspaper, torn out the page and folded it carefully. He hadn’t told me, he wasn’t someone who expressed his feelings. It was quite overwhelming to remember the pride he had… It took me back to the origins of my commitment.
Do we sometimes lose sight of this in your role?
When we have our noses in responsibilities, with injunctions, when we are caught up in the mainstream, in management, and we forget. My parents – my dad was a worker – made me a party president, a minister and yet, my father continued to think that he had not completely succeeded in life because he did not have the last Mercedes model… Rather than worrying about what the editorialists and my opponents thought of me, I remembered that politics was not for them that I was doing it. It came from the gut: I continue in the name of my people, in memory of my father. In the ambient climate, around asylum and migration, that means something. This candidacy is an act of resistance.
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After three years where I was rather discreet, by not participating in the public debate in a global way, I want to find my voice. I do not want to let us impose the terms of public debate. I want to influence the terms of the debate and participate in redirecting it.”
Why did you think about stopping politics?
For a profile like mine, being at this level of power is not yet easy. However, I was party co-president, I helped Ecolo win (in 2019), I have political experience. In the end, the Vivaldi experience, as minister, reinforced my idea that we cannot leave power in the hands of the same people. I can’t give up. The left and environmentalists must strengthen themselves with profiles like mine. We know the story of everything that my profile, both during my co-presidency and during my candidacy for the Constitutional Court, provoked negative reactions. After three years during which I did not participate in the public debate in a global way, I want to find my voice. And give one back to those who founded my commitment.
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“When I was co-president of Écolo, I was presented as the most radical thing possible. When I see the results I obtained, I say to myself that it is still much more effective. Here , I’ve been in my department for three years, I’ve been loyal and discreet. Does that give more results? I don’t know…
Are you going to find your style as president, which is not that of the minister?
When I was president, I was presented as the most radical thing around. When I see the results I obtained, I tell myself that it is still much more effective. Here, for three years in my department, I have played with loyalty and discretion. Does this give more results? I don’t know… In any case, with my experience as party co-president and minister, I come back with a voice that I want to make heard. We must assume a different voice, in the mediocrity of the Belgian party debate. On climate as on gender, there is a gulf between discourse and reality. All these reasons cause some colleagues to leave… I do not want to let us impose the terms of the public debate. I want to influence the terms of the debate and participate in reorienting it.
Gwendolyn Rutten is retiring from national politics. She is a former colleague, she chaired the Open VLD.
When I saw what she announced (Editor’s note: she resigned denouncing “disrespectful treatment”), I wanted to write her a message to say: ‘By leaving because they don’t give you responsibility, you are giving them give what they wanted and you make it easier for them.’ I also told myself that some people would be happy if I stopped too. All this reassured me in my choice.
Paradoxically, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo calls himself a feminist and even wrote a book on women in politics.
It belongs to him. Indeed, there is what we write, then there is what we do…
You are talking about guiding the terms of public debate. Currently, it focuses on security and immigration.
On safety, a little humility from everyone would go a long way. When we see the biggest figures say ‘States do not take back their nationals’, then we learn that Tunisia had requested it (Editor’s note: the extradition of Lassoued, the author of the Brussels attack)… This is a lesson we must learn. The debate today is not organized on an objective reality, but on the basis of an agenda. We see the MR exploiting and rewriting current events. Whether it is them or Theo Francken who puts the confinement of rejected families back on the table, we can clearly see that everything is flour in the mill for a reactionary agenda. It’s not just in Belgium that this is the case, even if Spain gives us a little light in an ocean of extreme right-wing public debate.
The dynamics of the elections, if it continues like this, could focus on security and other themes that are not favorable to the left and Eco.
Absolutely, but safety is as important to us environmentalists as it is to everyone else. My reality in relation to terrorist acts and the war in the Middle East is also my mother who tells me that, when she is in the metro, she waits until the doors are open before coming forward. Because she’s afraid that we’re pushing her back on track. This is also the reality today for the Muslim community, and the Jewish community, which is worried. There is no reason to leave the issue of security to the right.
Zakia Khattabi, is a French-speaking Belgian politician from Brussels, member of the Ecolo party. She was co-president of the party from March 22, 2015 to September 15, 2019, first with Patrick Dupriez, then with Jean-Marc Nollet from November 9, 2018 ©cameriere ennio
But when we talk about security, we don’t talk, for example, about the climate.
Climate is the social issue of the century. I also consider climate to be a national security issue. We saw it with the floods. The question of asylum at a given moment will also revolve around the climate and bring new waves of migration. My candidacy for federal office, I repeat, I present it in the name of my family and in the memory of my father. I say it with a lot of emotion, it’s still very recent, it was my father’s meeting with Belgium that made this possible (his voice trembles again, Editor’s note). The migratory wave did not provide terrorists, but ministers, lawyers, doctors, street sweepers, shopkeepers. I want it to be recognized. And in saying that, I am not minimizing the reality of the terrorist attack.
Have you given up on being the first female Minister-President of Brussels?
I always said no. And then, I asked myself the question: wouldn’t this, in the ambient climate, be a signal to give? But, despite the symbol, it still needs to be done. And the Region is not my subjects or my area of expertise.
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