May 8, 2023 - l'Européenne de Bruxelles

Lawrence Naesen hit from behind by team leader: ‘if you do that in Belgium you can spend a night in jail’

May 8, 2023 1104 views

There is more course than the Giro and Lawrence Naesen fell victim to Team leader Frederic Guesdon yesterday in the Tro Bro Leon. Yesterday was a busy day with the first ride in line in the Giro and the beautiful finish in the Vuelta Femenina. But also in Brittany was courted. There was the Tro Bro Leon on the program, a nice course on dirt roads on the program. For Lawrence Naesen it was not so beautiful. The Belgian of AG2R was driven off the socks by Groupama-FDJ team leader…

There is no such thing as safe gender conversion, Portugal voted

May 8, 2023 1104 views

Portugal’s Parliament passed several bills expanding the rights of the LGBTQ community on Friday, including a ban on “conversion therapies” aimed at changing gender identity or sexual orientation. The bills were on their first reading. The ruling Socialist Party, which has an absolute majority in Parliament, proposed a text which establishes penalties of up to two years imprisonment for anyone found to be responsible for practices that “facilitate or promote” such “therapies.” Conversion therapies are a pseudoscientific practice trying to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity to align with…

422,400 people were ordered to leave EU in 2022, majority are Ukrainians

May 8, 2023 1104 views

In 2022, 422,400 people were ordered to leave an EU Member State, according to statistics published on 5 May by Eurostat, the EU’s statistics bureau. Of this number, 77,530 non-EU citizens were forcibly returned to a country outside of the EU. In total, over 1 million people were found to be undocumented within an EU Member State and a further 141,060 people were refused entry into the bloc, either at its external borders or at airports in Member States. “The largest number of refusals of entry were reported by Poland…

Carrefour lowers prices, eliminating overreaction on inflation

May 8, 2023 1104 views

French supermarket giant Carrefour has announced that there will be price reductions on 100 of its products, starting from today. Customers will be able to take advantage of these lower fixed prices both in-store and online. The supermarket also promises to expand its number of reductions and offers. Whilst 100 goods will be available at a lower price for customers at its hypermarket locations, just 25 cut-price items will be stocked in its Carrefour Express locations. The reductions mostly concern everyday essentials such as toilet paper, food goods and other…

Sevenths of trains in Brussels came late

May 8, 2023May 8, 2023 1104 views

Train punctuality was lower in April than in the same month last year, according to figures on the Open Data website of rail network operator Infrabel. Of all domestic passenger trains, only 88.6% arrived in Brussels or the terminus station on time or with a delay of no more than 6 minutes in April, compared to 90.5% of on-time trains in April 2022. The findings follow the trend in the first three months of this year compared to last year. There were also 3,274 train cancellations in April. Taking the…

Guy Verhofstadt to retire from politics, leave Parliament in 2024

May 8, 2023 1104 views

Former Belgian Prime Minister and current MEP Guy Verhofstadt has announced that he will almost certainly retire from politics by the end of his parliamentary mandate in 2024. In a recent interview with De Tijd, Verhofstadt – who is renowned for his passionate pro-Europeanism – confirmed that he will not seek re-election to the European Parliament unless he is able to stand as a pan-European candidate in 2024: a highly unlikely possibility (currently, MEPs are elected by national constituents, rather than by citizens of other EU Member States). “I have…