10 March 2025

Johan Leman

Forming a Regional Government is a Matter of Civic Duty

The leaders of the various Brussels parties must realize that forming a Regional Government is, in their case, a civic duty. The federal level has taken its responsibility—Justice and Police […]

27 February 2025

Johan Leman

Why we do not want a “Drug Promenade”…

May I start by attaching a photo and a video? Here, you see a common sight at the beginning of the rue des Ateliers (near Place Sainctelette). At the end […]

22 February 2025

Johan Leman

The “Promenade de la drogue”

Poor official planning and the creation of serious problems: In De Morgen, Jurgen De Landsheer (police commissioner of Anderlecht) notes: ‘With all due respect to the asylum services, I would […]

14 February 2025

Johan Leman

Building and Planning in Brussels… a Hopeless Mess

s In Brussels, one would expect that people who build or plan projects always first carefully examine what lies just a few meters underground. It is no coincidence that Brussels […]

7 February 2025

Johan Leman

What Should a Comprehensive Fight Against the Brussels Drug Mafias Entail?

What follows is a plea for an integrated approach to tackling mafia-like structures in Brussels’ drug trade. Mafia is a complex reality. Here, I interpret it in a restrictive sense, […]

3 February 2025

Johan Leman

Garden Foyer youth work and garden museum MMM are threatened again

Along the canal, there are opportunities for walking and biking on either side, overlooking the water. Parallel, less than 100 metres away, is the rue des Ateliers, between place Sainctelette […]

22 January 2025

Johan Leman

How irresponsible can Brussels politicians be!

Can the public know what our Brussels representatives have been doing for months? They collect their salaries… but for what exactly?To issue vetoes and keep inventing new ones? First against […]

20 January 2025

Johan Leman

How active is the Muslim Brotherhood here in Brussels?

Yesterday, I spoke with a teacher from a French-speaking secondary school in Brussels.She told me that some colleagues are really struggling in their classrooms, for example, when discussing a theater […]

13 January 2025

Johan Leman

Some Brussels civil servant ‘ivory towers’

An anecdote. One day, we received on Foyer a threat of a fine via a form with the title “délabrement de la maison”. An official had noticed that we had […]

10 January 2025

Johan Leman

May the government take a more pragmatic approach to migration management

In Italy, over 800 million euros have already been spent to construct a closed center in Albania, where asylum seekers from “safe countries of origin” can be sent after arriving […]

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Blog

Johan Leman is a social and cultural anthropologist and president of Foyer VZW since 2003, where he was director from 1981 to 1989. He is an expert on integration policy and the fight against racism. From 1989 to 1993 he was chief of cabinet of the Royal Commissioner for Migrant Policy and from 1993 to 2003 he was director of the Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism.

In this blog, he gives his opinion and views on current events in and around Molenbeek.