This Wednesday, September 1st, Olivier Maingain, DéFI mayor of Woluwe-Saint-Lambert and former federal deputy, was the guest of the new program "C'est direct" of LN24.

On the agenda: floods in Wallonia, pension reform and herd immunity in the face of Covid-19.Management of major risks at the federal levelA month and a half after the floods that hit the country and caused dozens of victims in Wallonia, especially in Pepinster, Olivier Maingain points to the lack of support for local representatives but also the poor restructuring of services such as civil protection: "We realized, once again in this country, that the mayors were almost totally left to their own devices in the face of a situation of a magnitude that no one could have suspected. I also salute the work of local representatives regardless of their affiliation because, of course, faced with a situation such as this, it is no longer a question of political colour. But that's not all... We have seen the disorganization of the sovereign services, accentuated by the reforms of the State, including the emergency services and civil protection. It is a federal jurisdiction and we know that it has been restructured by carving it up when it is an essential service. In this sector, there is a lack of human resources (300 effective managers for 2 barracks) but also of equipment, means, rapid reaction capacity. I advocate the creation of a real federal agency for the prevention and management of major risks. For DéFI, pension reform is an essential debate to implement the vision of how Belgium wants to ensure the security of life of citizens who are living longer and longer. Olivier Maingain explains: "We must have a vision of building a pension system that is financeable and guarantees individual and collective dignity for those who will reach a respectable age. What I fear is that we will only make marginal accommodations for lack of courage to organize a real universal pension plan regardless of the status you have had in your professional life. I am not asking for that for those who are in the process of their careers now because we must not change the rules of the game abruptly for people who have built their career and their professional project on the basis of criteria related in particular to their pension plan. But, if we want to establish true equality of treatment, equal rights and obligations, we need a single universal pension scheme for those who are going to engage in working life with a perspective of 5 to 10 years. »