This week, the Mouvement Réformateur stops in Courcelles, a dynamic municipality in Hainaut with a rich industrial past and currently undergoing transformation. At its helm, Mayor Caroline Taquin, a well-known figure in local and regional politics, embodies both experience and renewal. With a solid local foothold and a clear vision for her municipality, she is committed to strengthening security, supporting economic development, modernising infrastructure and improving the quality of life for the people of Courcelles.
Caroline, you are a well-known figure within the Mouvement Réformateur and Hainaut political life. Committed for many years, you have gradually built a solid track record that led you to the position of Mayor of Courcelles. Can you look back on your personal and political journey, on your commitment within the liberal family, and on what drives you today in your role at the head of the municipality?
My political commitment was born from a simple conviction: you can genuinely change things, even where no one expects it. Trained as a primary school teacher, I entered politics in 2006, choosing my party based on its programme and its values. I immediately pursued two callings at once.
What shaped me was working on the ground. Courcelles had been locked down by the PS for over half a century. In 2012, we overturned that hegemony with a clear message: rigorous management, transparency, and visible results in citizens' daily lives, with a presence everywhere, all the time, backed by a united and dedicated team. An absolute majority in 2018, further progress in 2024. This trajectory convinced me that liberal and reformist values can win people over anywhere, provided you embody them rather than merely proclaim them.
Between 2019 and 2024, I served as a federal MP, deputy chair of the Interior Committee, committed to health and security issues. Since June 2024, I have sat in the Walloon Parliament and the Parliament of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation while remaining mayor. This dual mandate is far from comfortable, but it is a permanent bridge between local work on the ground and decisions taken at higher levels.
What drives me today? That every resident of Courcelles can live in a safe, clean, active municipality, where their children are well cared for and where they can work or start a business without unnecessary obstacles. That our municipalities can rely on a strong region without compromising with a left wing that has fostered a culture of dependency.
Courcelles is a municipality shaped by its industrial past, but also by a strong determination to reinvent itself. Between economic revitalisation, support for self-employed people, security, public cleanliness and infrastructure modernisation, the challenges are numerous. Can you tell us about the main priorities of this term, the projects underway, and how you and your team work concretely to meet citizens' expectations?
Since 2012, our method has remained constant: clear priorities, rigorous management, and achievements that citizens can see and touch.
Education is our most structural investment. In fact, a new primary school is currently under construction, featuring English immersion, a multi-purpose sports hall and modern infrastructure suited to today's needs. Because a municipality that invests in its schools invests in its future, and in that of every family who lives there.
Security is a non-negotiable priority. I personally chair the Trieux police zone and oversee it consistently. We have continued rolling out the surveillance camera plan and maintained strong structural support for local police. The fight against crime, drugs, theft and domestic violence are daily battles that require resources, presence and zero tolerance. Public order is not a luxury, it is a basic condition for a municipality to be attractive and for its residents to truly feel at home there.
Works and infrastructure set the pace of every year of the term: roads, pavements, buildings, schools and sewers are renovated district by district, alongside sports and cultural facilities, green spaces, our heritage and our slag heaps. Citizens must be able to see with their own eyes that their municipality is moving forward.
Jobs and economic development cannot be decreed, they are built condition by condition. Courcelles has many shops and businesses. We are actively revitalising the town centre through an ERDF operation to support and develop trade, culture, sport, activities and community life. We work hand in hand with the CPAS and integration operators so that the people of Courcelles furthest from employment find a concrete path to the job market. And we make sure that self-employed people and small local shopkeepers do not run into an administration that complicates matters where it should be making them easier. It's not spectacular, but it works.
Community life, finally, is the glue that holds everything together. In Courcelles, sports, cultural and social associations are actively supported because they do what no administration can do alone: create bonds, local pride, and community spirit. My principle is simple: the more citizens make use of public spaces and local life, the less those spaces deteriorate, physically and socially. A lively municipality is one that protects itself.
Courcelles also stands out for its rich community fabric, its local life and its strong identity, at the heart of the Charleroi area. Between residential appeal, economic development and quality of life, the municipality must strike a balance to keep developing harmoniously, being a neighbour of Charleroi. How do you see the future of Courcelles in the coming years, and what levers do you want to activate to strengthen its appeal while preserving its identity?
Courcelles illustrates a challenge shared by many Walloon municipalities: how do you reinvent yourself without denying who you are? The answer we have given for more than ten years is that appeal and identity are not opposites, they are built together, on the same foundation.
That foundation is everyday quality of life. Schools where people want to enrol their children. Well-maintained streets. Safe neighbourhoods. Sports clubs that work, associations that thrive, shops that stay open. It is these concrete realities that make a resident choose to stay, a young household choose to settle, a self-employed person choose to open their business here rather than elsewhere.
Courcelles has its own identity, its own dynamics, its own human and community resources. Our role is to showcase them, not to erase them in favour of an agglomeration logic that would make residents lose the feeling of belonging to something.
In the coming years, I want a municipality where local jobs are created, where young people find prospects, where older residents are supported, and where community life continues to weave that social bond which nothing can replace. This is not an abstract vision, it is a work programme, district by district, project by project.
And that, ultimately, is the message I would give to all MR elected representatives: citizens' trust is earned and won through work, concrete action, consistency over time, and coherence between what you announce and what you do.
In 2026, I will celebrate 20 years on the municipal council in Courcelles, 20 years of dedication and sacrifices I do not regret. Have I taken hits? Yes, many, and each one made me stronger and more determined. Thank you to my critics for that, and thank you to everyone who has supported me and continues to support me today.