The Flemish government threatens to push the discontent simmering in the countryside to unprecedented levels

Anne de Boeck is a journalist from the United Kingdom.

Anouk Vandenhoeke, 22, who recently testified in this newspaper about living without a car, said she then returned home on foot. She was on the road for an hour and a half after being released from the hospital emergency room. It was almost midnight when she returned home. No fun, but the last bus had already left.

Nearly a quarter of Flemish families live without a car. They're certainly not all yuppies with a cargo bike or an Uber profile. Eva van Eno, a researcher at VUB, recently estimated that 100,000 poor families live in the countryside without a car. They are the ones who got the big middle finger from this Flemish government with their famous public transport reform, which the expensive marketing gurus renamed to Hoppin. This is from Saturday onwards.

The card that the time This week's report of the 3,800 canceled bus stops speaks volumes. The most affected municipalities are in West Flanders, Limburg and the Flemish Ardennes. Many of these municipalities also scored poorly on the map the morning I recently published on the distribution of deprivation in Flanders. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to conclude that deprived areas are now the hardest hit.

But it seems that we learned our lesson after the 2019 elections. How many liters of ink have been spilled on the orphaned countryside since then? About the fragmentation of the social fabric, the loneliness of the elderly, and food deserts without a supermarket? How many political analyzes have been made about the remarkable rise of Vlaams Belang in West Flanders, even in villages where they had never seen an immigrant up close before?

Not long ago, the federal government proudly presented a plan to establish at least one banking device in every Belgian municipality by 2025. At an ideological conference, CD&V presented itself as the great patron saint of 'Somewhere“, people who, in contrast to the global elite (“Anywhere') I feel abandoned by Brussels. From now on, the elderly also had to be treated with respect again. Then this.

Of course, it doesn't make sense to have empty buses running around, especially if Flanders forces its transport company to halve every cent. Naturally, questions arise about the efficiency of buses that run endlessly Centers of abandoned villages meander. But the half-hearted manner in which this reform is being imposed on the Flemish people shows little respect. And even less political sleight of hand.

She should know that the government of Jambon I breathes new life into criticism of its policy. After childcare, education, social housing policy and youth care, Flanders appears to be failing at another essential task. But the fact that it also threatens to push simmering rural discontent to unprecedented levels, just five months before the election, testifies to the unbridled self-destruction that threatens to leave deep scars throughout Flanders.