This Sunday, after two years of health crisis, DéFI activists gathered for a Congress of mobilization around amaranth values.

The opportunity to present the party's lines of forces on institutional matters and on those of political secularism, key to living together. For several months, DéFI has been updating its political project. A work, which will continue until the end of 2022, around 5 axes: Restoring Belgium in the state... federal. Make political secularism the key to citizenship of living together. Unleash the entrepreneurial spirit. Make the social contract fairer. Reconciling sustainable development, economy and freedoms. These are the strong proposals of the first two axes that were at the heart of this Sunday's Congress. After the vote on the party's new statutes, these guidelines in institutional matters and in terms of political secularism were presented by various personalities of the party from both Wallonia and Brussels, elected officials or party executives... And with strict parity between speakers. On the institutional front, the president of DéFI called for the awakening of French-speaking democratic parties. No, the nationalist threat is not averted. It will hit hard and hard in 2024. It is high time that Francophones prepared for this. And I call on all the French-speaking democratic parties to do the same exercise as us, to draw "their" Belgium, their idea of the link between Wallonia and Brussels, and then to confront them, to discuss it in order to agree with the nationalist threat that is coming".  He added: "No more reform of the state must be done for the beautiful eyes of nationalism, and against the interest of the French-speaking citizens of this country." Olivier Maingain, mayor of Woluwé-Saint-Lambert: "This party has no raison d'être, no DNA and above all no influence, unless it remains in the vanguards." For DéFI, staying at the forefront means seeing the institutional future take shape in the form of loyal federalism with the north of the country and strengthened solidarity among Francophones. The Walloons and the people of Brussels must consider more than ever their future together, in the sharing of common institutions and not in a model of federalism with 4 regions that is only the antechamber of confederalism. DéFI is the guardian of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation and wishes to strengthen it and make it a lever for economic, social and research exchanges between our two regions. If the federal state must of course retain its sovereign powers, for DéFI, it must also be strong and united in two specific situations: first to ensure the security of existence. This is why health, but also family allowances, policy towards people with disabilities and the fight against poverty must be refederalised. The federal state, in addition, must be able to take command in the event of a serious crisis, as shown, by contrast of deficiency, the covid, the floods or the arrival of refugees. And to recall forcefully that the fate of the Francophones of the periphery, like that of all minorities, should be "the" priority of a federal state worthy of the name. What Belgium will not be completely until it has protected all its minorities, and until it has ratified the Framework Convention on their protection." It is a question of justice and respect for human rights, period," summed up Federal MP Sophie Rohonyi, for whom the rights of non-Dutch speakers in the Brussels periphery remain at the heart of her political commitment. "Because living on the periphery means living daily community vexations that are of the order of assimilation, in other words vexations that deny our Francophone culture, and therefore our identity." For DéFI, the time is also ripe for democratic renewal. Whether with the citizens' initiative referendum both at the federal level and in the federated entities but also by bringing more people with different profiles to do politics. This is why DéFI is proposing a political holiday to allow more citizens to enter politics. A limitation on the number of successive mandates and the end of a series of tax privileges." It is necessary to limit the accumulation of mandates and remuneration, which feeds a feeling of mistrust of citizens towards elected officials and creates an increasingly important inequality between representatives and citizens, "added Alexandra Dupire, Secretary General of DéFI.On political secularism, as highlighted by Francis De Hertog, alderman in Enghien, "Political secularism offers the roots