The Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration Policy, Theo Francken, has reacted on Twitter to a New York Times article in which he is dubbed “a Flemish Trump” by sharing a video in which he denies being “anti-migration”. In the article - on Belgium’s management of Sudanese migrants - the U.S. daily stated that: “Theo Francken is a 39-year-old Flemish nationalist who in 2014 was appointed secretary of state for asylum and migration. He is known for making incendiary comments about migrants; in September, he apologized for using the term ‘cleaning up’ about a police operation in which several undocumented immigrants were arrested”.
It added: “Supporters and critics alike have called Mr. Francken ‘the Flemish Trump’.”
Francken was not pleased by the comparison. “Come again?!” he retorted in a tweet, accompanied by a video clip from an interview published by Terzake and subtitled in English for the occasion. In the interview he says: ”I am not ‘anti-migration’. I have never been anti-migration.”
The Washington Post had earlier described Francken as an “anti-migration extremist”.
The Brussels Times
