The announcement that Georges-Louis Bouchez, leader of the Francophone liberal MR party, would appear in a Flemish reality television show raised eyebrows across the country. Now with the first episode release, initial scepticism has hardened to criticism.
The show, called 'Special Forces: who dares wins', is a spin-off of a similar scenario broadcast in the UK, which itself lifts the motto of the Special Air Service – an elite unit of the British Army famed for their courage and survival skills.
Bouchez is taking part in the new Flemish reality TV shows on the popular VTM channel. In it, 11 celebrities – including singers, actors and athletes – follow a six-day training course in the Moroccan desert to join the Special Forces, the Belgian army's elite unit.
While he is certainly not the first politician to show up in an entertainment programme (Flemish socialist leader Conner Rousseau was hidden in a rabbit costume for The Masked Singer, Interior Affairs Minister Annelies Verlinden travelled to Greece for Viva La Feta and Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne spent four days in prison for Recht naar de gevangenis), Bouchez is among the first to cross Belgium's language border.
'A conceited fils-à-papa'
Although several Francophone newspapers have questioned the growing exposure politicians receive on Flemish TV in the run-up to the 2024 elections, the criticism levelled at Bouchez focused strongly on how the gruelling Special Forces training revealed his true character.
"An ostensibly conceited fils-à-papa who, during the military training tests, went wrong almost to the point of parody," said Flemish newspaper De Morgen. "He refused to carry out the assignments correctly and invariably shuffled gruffly at the back of the line of frantically working colleagues."
At first, the other contestants still found him amusing ("Even upside, down he has an answer to everything"), but no one was laughing by the end of the day; as the candidates dragged heavy jerry cans up and down a mountain, Bouchez did not lift a finger, and when the instructors ordered everyone to run, he kept on walking.
Bouchez (right) during one of the physical tests. Credit: DPG Media
While he himself recognised at the start of the programme that he was not in good enough shape to keep up with the physical hardships, it was his attitude that sparked a barrage of criticism from social media users, the ten other candidates, and most of all – the instructors.
"Your problem is not so much the lack of physicality, it is above all the absence of team spirit," the instructors told him at the end of the episode. "You are a dead weight to the group. That you cannot add anything to the team, that's one thing, but that you work against them, that is unheard of."
Those comments in particular were used by social media users to draw a comparison between the programme and Bouchez's often-contested political actions, posting screenshots of the moment he is being berated with the caption saying "when reality TV validates political analyses."
De Standaard, too, wrote that the episode exposed him as a man "of much talk but no action," and added that the programme "succeeded in unmasking Bouchez better than any opponent in a debate or a critical journalist in an interview."
Bouchez, for his part, responded to the Francophone LN24 television programme. "I would say to wait for the next episodes. You will see in the next episode that I am someone who takes his responsibility. Also, keep in mind that this is a game. If De Morgen and De Standaard do their great political analysis based on this, that says a lot about them."
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Still, many have argued that no matter how badly Bouchez is coming out of this, he will still be "delighted" with the exposure the participation has given him.
As he said himself while descending a 20-metre tower in the middle of the Moroccan desert using the 'facedown,' a technique of walking vertically over the wall of a building via safety belts: "If after this I don't become prime minister, I don't know what else I can do."
