Belgium: Charleroi declares itself an “anti-fascist city”
The municipal council of Charleroi (Belgium) adopted on Monday January 23 a motion making the municipality “an anti-fascist city”.
A first. This Monday, following a decision by the municipal council, the city of Charleroi, fr Belgium, has become an “anti-fascist city”. This follows the adoption of a motion, carried by an “anti-fascist coalition”, made up of political parties, trade unions, associations and members of civil society.
This alliance has a few general objectives, such as “to prevent by all legal means the dissemination of statements inciting hatred, racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, discrimination relating to sexual orientation, openly fascist and xenophobic, on the territory of Charleroi”. But also, to relay information “when it concerns an event likely to incite hatred, racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, openly fascist and xenophobic”.
A symbolic holiday
This “anti-fascist coalition” is the result of discussions produced in the context of a general rise of far-right ideas in the city. The incidents that occurred on January 25, 2020 in Charleroi on the occasion of a mobilization of an anti-fascist front against the holding in the metropolis of a meeting of a new party offar right also weighed in the balance.
In particular, it plans to do, again, on May 8, the date of the end of the Second World War and the victory of the allies against Nazi Germany, a public holiday.
In Belgium, this date has not been a public holiday since 1983. If ceremonies are organized, they are much less important than those of November 11, the date of the signing of the Armistice of 1918.