GaëtanVan Goidsenhoven

Born in Uccle in 1973, Gaëtan Van Goidsenhoven went to school in Anderlecht. He graduated in history from the Université libre de Bruxelles in 1997 and worked as a historian at the French-speaking Liberal Archives before becoming a civil servant in the Cultural Heritage department of the French Community.

Politically active alongside Jacques Simonet since 1995, he sat on the Anderlecht CPAS from 2001 and has been a municipal councillor since 2006. In 2007 he succeeded Jacques Simonet as mayor of Anderlecht, a position he held until 2012, before serving as first alderman from 2012 to 2018.

A member of the Brussels Parliament since 2009, he has chaired the MR group in the French-speaking Brussels Parliament since 2013 and has sat in the Parliament of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation since 2016. A senator since 2019, he was appointed MR group leader in the Senate in October of that same year. He has also chaired the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals Veeweyde since December 2018.

He is currently a senator and MR group leader in the Senate, a member of the Brussels Parliament and of the Parliament of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation.