Walloons blame PS for lagging economy

4 June 2007

BRUSSELS –Almost 50 percent of Walloons thinks that the Socialist Party (PS) is responsible for the lagging economic growth in Wallonia and 70 percent says that the regional government is being hurt by bad management.

This emerged from the survey “Tour de Wallonie” published by La Libre Belgique on Monday. The poll showed that 47.8 percent of the Walloons questioned think that the PS is responsible for the region’s failure to catch up with the rest of the country economically.

37.4 percent of those questioned disagree, however. People between the ages of 18 and 35 and those over the age of 66 were more likely to blame the PS than other parties. Men tend to be more convinced of this opinion than women.

69.3 percent of Walloons also thinks that the government of the Walloon region is characterised by bad government, while 18.5 percent thinks this is not the case. 68.9 percent did not agree that the Francophones and Wallonia are holding back the economic growth of Flanders, while 18.1 percent said this was the case.

Subject: Belgian news