PVDA leader Raoul Hedebouw has condemned Defence Minister Theo Francken’s remarks linking the party to Friday’s Brussels rioters, calling them unacceptable and deeply serious.
Francken, of the N-VA, described the hundreds of rioters in Brussels as the PVDA’s “shock troops” and again argued for “the creation of an armed force to crack down, like the gendarmerie of the past.”
Hedebouw said the minister was “criminalising an opposition party.”
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He argued that Francken was targeting the PVDA because the government is looking for billions in funding while, he said, Francken is the only minister still receiving billions for his department.
According to Hedebouw, the PVDA wants to find that money elsewhere rather than “from ordinary people.”
The Marxist party leader also said the violence at Friday’s demonstration was “unacceptable.”
He said he would rather focus on the main protest, which drew a large crowd and whose participants were making legitimate demands that were not being heard by the federal government.
Speaking at the Climate March in Brussels on Sunday, Hedebouw said the vast majority of demonstrators had been there to take part constructively in the protest.
