“Emotionally”this is undoubtedly the strongest moment of the long political career of Joëlle Milquet (the committed). At that time, she was Vice-Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior. The very morning of the announcement of the tragedy, a limited government (a Kern) meets. “”I have never seen my life a wealthy government like that for so longshe recalls. I who cries hard in public, who tries to manage my emotions, I could not hold back my tears. With Laurette Onkelinx (Vice-Prime PS), my male colleagues too, we were all crying. I have never seen such a strong collective emotion. “
We had to order the small white coffins … I never told myself that I was going to have to do this.
“It was terrible. We had to make decisions to charter an airplane so that the parents could go there. We had to order small white coffins – never in my life, I told myself that I was going to have to do this -, repatriate the bodies, manage the accompaniment, organize the funeral. We got very involved to try to manage in the best way … There is no good way tried to supervise, to support families as much as possible. “
The two holy agreements
On the strictly political level, the most striking episode of her career-to hear it is undoubtedly the one of which she is most proud-is the conclusion of the Saint-Polycarpe agreements (or Lambermont agreements) to the Federal, followed by the Saint-Boniface agreements in the French Community in 2001.
It was the time of the Verhofstadt I government, of an unprecedented rainbow coalition between liberals, socialists and environmentalists. The time, too, of the fifth state reform which provided for new transfers of federal state skills to regions and communities (agriculture, foreign trade, strengthening of the autonomy of federated entities …), in exchange for a refinancing of French -speaking education, therefore of the French community, competent in the matter.
“Safety belts were not enough”
The Verhofstadt government did not have the qualified majority in the parliament necessary to approve a state reform. At first, he wanted to add the support of the Volksunie, in the opposition. But negotiations will lead the Flemish nationalist party to implosion and creation, in the process, of the N-VA.
Convince the barons of the PSC
The mostly rainbow majority turned to another opposition party, the PSC (ancestor of the committed and the CDH), and its young president, Joëlle Milquet. “It was Elio Di Rupo (President of the PS) who took the first contacts with me to see if we agree to support the fifth reform of the State in order to allow the refinancing of French -speaking teaching. I remember that we had met Elio and Laurette in a little boynnier near the Federal Parliament to start discuss”she smiles.
As they were dependent on us to vote the state reform, there was a historic window to grasp. We have never been so kind to me.
The centrist is ready. “”Teaching and education have always been in my priorities and The financing of teaching was seriously in danger.” In his own party, however, “The barons, such as Jean-Pol Poncelet, were completely opposed to the idea of helping the majority “. “I really had to convince internally. The unions came to help me. I had Jean-Jacques Viewer (ex-Minister of Finance) with me. I was tenacious because I thought it was fundamental. “
The French Community is poorly funding its schools
She finally won. The PSC will bring its voices to the state reform. “”But I didn’t be satisfied with that. “ It conditions the essential support of her party to another reform, intra-fall-speaking that one. “”The idea was to say that if we allowed overall refinancing of education, we wanted to obtain a new equal treatment between students within the French community, and strengthen the financing of all schools, that is to say the subsidized communal and free network as much as that of the French Community. We wanted to ultimately reduce inequalities between schools. “
In other words, it was a question of gradually rebalancing the financing of the official (of the French Community) and free networks, largely dominated by Catholic education. Almost 25 years later, this process is still underway.
The role of the future boss of Segec
“I had prepared this reform with Etienne Michel, who was the political secretary of the PSC and who will later become the secretary general of the Segec (the dome of Catholic education). We were hyperprepared. We had all the texts. It had bothered the other parties a lotshe has fun today. As they were dependent on us, there was a historic window to grasp. We have never been so kind to me. “
This double agreement, from Saint-Polycarpe and Saint-Boniface, had several political consequences. First, the return of the PSC – which will become the CDH less than a year later – on the front of the stage. “”We were put in opposition after the dioxin crisis in 1999. It was a first for the party. We were a little forgotten party in the opposition. It was the rainbow period. Everything was beautiful. We were a bit of the incarnation of the past. This episode has opened us up in the political world. We became become a force that existed, which had taken responsibility. “
It went very badly with the CVP. You had to be like small doggies and follow them in their opposition to the government. It was not my intention at all.
These negotiations also solidified the links between Joëlle Milquet and Elio Di Rupo, a duo who will give the “the” of French -speaking policy for a dozen years. “”We already knew each other wellsaid the former president of the centrist. We have always had excellent human relationships and enormous confidence between us because it has never been betrayed. But it is true that this episode undoubtedly strengthened the links between us and our teams. “
Icy relationship with the CD&V
Conversely, the links deteriorated with the Flemish brother party, the CVP, which will become the CD&V two months after the vote of the fifth reform of the State. “”It went very badly with them. You had to be like small doggies and follow them in their opposition to the government. It was not my intention at all. They took this as a betrayal, when they would have done exactly the same if it was Dutch -speaking teachingfinished Joëlle Milquet, who however maintained very good contacts with Stefaan de Clerck, then president of Flemish Christians.
“I obviously found the relationship with the CD&V interesting, but it did not win the interest of French -speaking students and the world of teaching in general. From that moment, the relationship was much more complicated. We had to pick up the pieces as we could. But I think that, in any case, the evolution of our federal system and the successive reforms of the State imposed a certain distance between our two formations. “