What about Jean-Marie Raxhon?
My grandfather Raxhon, I spoke a lot of political with him. I would say that his advice was rather his way of working that inspired me. The advice has never been really said like that, but it is rather to really listen to people and not to have prejudices, first to listen and then then, to act. And I think my grandfather was someone very fair and very rigorous. Sometimes, in a situation in my life, I wonder “Here, what would he have done to him?”. I try to get back into her shoes a little and it guides me.
Elected by surprise, as you say, for your first participation in elections, you have immediately become alderman. Without having never sat on the municipal council. After 8 months since your entry into office, is there something in politics that surprised you, as well as in bad, whether in the municipal council or in the municipal college (it is not the same thing)? Let’s start with the municipal council, where you sit with the 36 other elected officials, of the majority as well as the opposition?
In bad, I find that we talk a lot to say nothing, that ideas could be really shortened and that it would make the discourse more constructive. For the opposition, it’s filmed, it’s show, it’s also how we can, that they can, withdraw something from it and I understand it well. But it is true that it is almost to the detriment of the fact that it is constructive because at one point, we let go.
The municipal council sessions actually last sometimes 5, 6 or even 7 hours…
Yes, at one point, everyone lets go and that is a shame. Even the citizens who look (Editor’s note: via YouTube) to be interested in it.
On the other hand, what I find very positive is that once it is finished, we all get the kiss and we know that it is still possible to work together. As we arrive in another role, we are again ourselves, we kiss, we say: “Here, I wanted to discuss this with you, it’s possible”. Yes, it is possible. That, I think it’s positive.
Let’s come to the municipal college, which is another body, with the bourgmestre and the other aldermen (Together Verviers and PS-IC).
Yes, that’s something else. Honestly, I don’t see many negative points. I find that, for the moment, it is going very well. We communicate well. There are some who like to say a little, once around the table, that on one thing or the other, it was not very clear. But in fact, it goes very well, we listen to each other and I don’t really have any negative things to remember. Me, I don’t really like it when it goes up in the towers for nothing. So I am rather the one who will say “Come on, calm down”.
Does it often go up in the towers?
Not too much, not at all, not at all. Sometimes it is really for trifles, because one or the other finds that we go on his skills. But then, we take a step back on the situation, we will discuss, it will be fine. That may be something that I like a little less … but that still amuses me. It’s quite part of the political game but it is also part of me, it is in my character to calm things and take a step back. On the other hand, if I am bored, there, too bad, we will go up in the towers.
So I really don’t have a lot of negative to say for the municipal college. Besides, on the advice either, which is as it is, we know that it is like that. He is filmed and I think that’s what plays.
Bio express
Family
Born in Verviers on May 31, 2000, Romane Raxhon is an only daughter. She is the granddaughter of Jean-Marie Raxhon (died in 2021), who was bourgmestre PSC de Verviers from 1983 to 1988 and from 1995 to 2001, and René Schyns (died in 2023), who was for 20 years the president of the PSC of the district and who was the organizer of large exhibitions (Tout Hergé, I was 20 years old in 1945, Made in Belgium, etc.).
Schooling
After kindergartens in Sainte-Marie Heusy, she did her primaries at the Duke school in Marlborough (Dolhain) “To be in immersion in English” Then his secondary to SFX1 “In immersion in Dutch”. A graduate engineer in management, with a baccalaureate in HEC-Liège and a master’s degree in Solvay (Brussels), she also followed a training in innovative strategy in Harvard during an internship in the United States via the AWEX (the Walloon Export agency) to export neobulles products (friends of friends, etc.).
Career
Before devoting herself fully to her alderman, she worked in the commercial sector for Nestlé then as a computer consultant for Odoo. “I have computers in my skills.”
Policy
Elected in the municipal elections of October 2024 on the list of Cartel Ensemble Verviers (associating MR, committed and new Verviers), she immediately became alderman last December. “It was really a surprise (a very, very nice surprise), I had never even dared to imagine that it could happen”she smiles.
