DéFI


DéFI, a backronym of Démocrate fédéraliste indépendant is a regionalist and social-liberal List of [political parties in Belgium|political party] in Belgium mainly known for defending French-speakers' interests in and near the Brussels region. Founded in 1964, the party is led by Sophie Rohonyi, a former member of the Chamber of Representatives. The party's current name, DéFI or Défi, was adopted in 2016 and is a backronym of Démocrate, Fédéraliste, Indépendant meaning "challenge" in French.

History

The party was founded as the Democratic Front of Francophones on 11 May 1964 as a response to the language laws of 1962. The party had instant success in Brussels: it first contested parliamentary elections one year later, where it won one senator and 3 seats in the Chamber of Representatives for the constituency of Brussels. Its number of seats increased further in the subsequent parliamentary elections. The party also dominated Brussels' municipal politics until 1982. Antoinette Spaak became the first woman to lead a Belgian political party when she was elected to lead the FDF in 1977.
Initially the party cooperated with the Walloon Rally. From 1977 until 1980, the FDF participated in the federal governments led by Leo Tindemans and subsequently Wilfried Martens. From 1992, the FDF regularly competed in electoral alliance with the larger Liberal [Reformist Party (Belgium)|Liberal Reformist Party]. In 2002 the PRL, the FDF, the MCC and the PFF formed the Reformist Movement, a closer alliance of Francophone liberal parties.
In January 2010 the party name was amended to Francophone Democratic Federalists, maintaining its original acronym. In September 2011, the FDF decided to leave the alliance over disagreements with MR president Charles Michel on the agreement concerning the splitting of the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde district during the 2010–2011 [Belgian government formation].
The party adopted its current name, DéFI, in November 2015.

Ideology and policies

The party advocates the extension of the bilingual status of Brussels to some municipalities in the Brussels Periphery, where a majority of the population has become French-speaking in recent years, but whose official language remains Dutch. The party advocates for the right to use French rather than Dutch when dealing with local authorities in Flanders. This demand is rejected by Flemish parties, who say that French-speaking residents of the Flemish Region should learn Dutch and argue that the Francization of Brussels should not be allowed to expand into Flanders.

Electoral positioning

During the 2019 election campaign, the RePresent research centre — composed of political scientists from five universities — studied the electoral programmes of Belgium's thirteen main political parties. This study classified the parties on two "left-right" axes, from "-5" to "5" : a "classic" socio-economic axis, which refers to state intervention in the economic process and the degree to which the state should ensure social equality, and a socio-cultural axis, which refers to a divide articulated around an identity-based opposition on themes such as immigration, Europe, crime, the environment, emancipation, etc.
DéFI then presented a centrist programme on the socio-economic level, and left-wing on the socio-cultural level.
The RePresent centre repeated the exercise during the 2024 election campaign for the twelve main parties. DéFI's positioning shifted to the centre-left on the socio-economic axis and slightly more towards the centre, but still on the left, on the socio-cultural axis.

Representation

Notable elected members include:

Chamber of Representatives

European Parliament