This Wednesday 8 April, at the Walloon Parliament, MR group leader Valérie De Bue set the record straight, MR-style. Facing a left that paints a bleak picture and multiplies caricatures, she defended a clear line: tell the truth, reform, and put Wallonia back on the road to prosperity.
"Dear colleagues, I have listened attentively to all your speeches and I believe the Walloon people deserve better than a debate full of insults," she says. "Of course, we do not agree on the vision for society, but we must defend our ideas calmly and serenely. This government follows a course: you can agree or disagree, but that course has been set."
On employment, she rejects the doom scenario: "You still talk about the unemployed, we talk about jobseekers." She dismantles the opposition's "apocalyptic narrative": the rise in figures stems mainly from a change in methodology decided by the previous majority, not an explosion in unemployment. "Telling people there are no jobs is a call to panic and discourages those who want to work their way out."
She also reframes the debate on exclusions: "You wave around 55% of excluded people who would shift to the CPAS, but the federation of CPAS speaks of 34%." This first wave concerns people who have been far from employment for years. "It is precisely for these groups that we are setting up single points of contact to better monitor and support them." And she recalls: "In the second half of 2025, Forem noted a 22% rise in jobseekers who should have been excluded but who found a fixed-term contract instead. The reform brings people back to work."
On energy, Valérie De Bue is equally direct: "Whatever this government does, you criticise it." She denounces European mechanisms "too harsh for citizens and for our industrial fabric" and promises: "We will do everything to limit the impact of ETS2, RED 3 and PEB 4 on the purchasing power of Walloon citizens." The government is taking structural measures on the grid, production and procedures to secure supply and protect households in the long run.
Finally, she embraces a shift in ecological approach: "We are turning the page on a guilt-inducing ecology. Our ambition is clear: to make the climate transition our economic engine." Investments in nuclear power, CO₂ capture, energy efficiency: "That means guaranteeing stable low-carbon energy, supporting our industries, easing bills and creating local jobs. That is the ecology of responsibility."
Her closing message is clear: "You can keep multiplying your outrage. We will keep doing what changes lives here: simplifying the path to employment, defending affordable, low-carbon energy, enabling access to property, supporting our businesses." Wallonia, she concludes, "needs coherent decisions", and it is this Wallonia of responsibility and work that the MR group "will continue to defend".