Businessman Walter Feltrin and his wife, Barbara Dufour, announced on Thursday the official launch of a new political party, Oxygène, which aims to present candidates throughout Wallonia and Brussels at the legislative and regional elections in 2019. Presenting the party’s platform, contained in a book titled ‘Alternative’, Feltrin said he had concrete plans for the two regions. “Wallonia Region and Brussels Region are sick,” he said at a press conference in Namur. “Our regions are stagnating. In this book, we lay out the problems, our observations, and especially the solutions we wish to propose.”
The new party describes itself as a citizen’s party, between the left and the right, that aims to achieve economic recovery and an equitable society. “The most important element is ethics,” Barbara Dufour stressed. “We have drawn up a transparency charter.”
Dufour, a teacher, said the creation of Oxygène (Oxygen) was self-evident. “We chose action and that is why we did not just want a movement, but a party,” she said. “We wanted to make a commitment. It was a moral obligation.”
The name was not chosen at random, the party’s founders explain. It refers to life and people’s wellbeing, which is what Oxygène is all about, they say.
The Brussels Times
