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New Belgium prime minister Sophie Wilmès becomes first woman and Jew in role
She took the role to replace Charles Michel, who stepped down on Sunday
October 29, 2019 10:07
She took the role to replace Charles Michel, who stepped down on Sunday
October 29, 2019 10:07Belgium’s new prime minister is simultaneously the first woman and Jew to hold the position.
Sophie Wilmès, a centrist politician who replaced Charles Michel on Sunday, is to lead a caretaker government during negotiations to form a new coalition government.
The 44-year-old mother of four is likely to be in the role for several months as Belgian coalition negotiations can be a notoriously protracted process.
Both she and Mr Michel, who is due to replace Donald Tusk as president of the European Council in December, are members of the centre-left Reformist Movement (MR) party.
Belgium has been without a functioning federal government since December last year, when a coalition led by Mr Michel collapsed. Negotiations have since stalled.
Philippe Markiewicz, the president of the Consistoire organization of Belgian Jewry, said that Ms Wilmès’s mother is Ashkenazi Jewish, and that she had lost several relatives in the Holocaust.
“She hid her Jewish identity, though it seems to be a private detail from her biography and not something connected to any policy-making aspect,” he told JTA.
Her father Philippe was a lecturer at the Catholic University of Louvain and not of Jewish origin.
Michael Freilich, an MP for the New Flemish Alliance who formerly edited the Antwerp-based Jewish newspaper Joods Actueel, said Ms Wilmès’s appointment was a “historic event that makes me feel proud.”
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