Belgians bid farewell to former prime minister Dehaene

Last Friday saw the state funeral of former Belgian prime minister Jean-Luc Dehaene, who died on May 15 in France at Onze-Lieve-Vrouw church in Vilvoorde, just outside of Brussels. It was, as the family had requested, an informal ceremony, with Jacques Brel’s love song “Ne Me Quitte Pas” playing as people arrived at the church and a guard of honour made up of boy scouts lined up on the steps outside.

The ceremony – held in the town where Dehaene lived and where he was mayor for several  years until 2007 – was attended by most senior Belgian politicians, including European Council president Herman Van Rompuy. A large crowd gathered outside the church to follow the ceremony on a large screen.

The relaxed mood extended to the traditional funeral card, which had a political cartoon on the back drawn by Knack cartoonist Karl Meersman during the contaminated chicken scandal in 1999, which eventually led to Dehaene’s downfall. It showed Dehaene’s head in the shape of an egg, with the message EI NDE (a play on the Dutch word ei, egg, and einde, end).

Dehaene once said in an interview that he liked the cartoon and wanted it on his funeral card. A message from his wife, Célie, was printed inside the card: “Optimistic to the end, full of courage and strength. Always in my heart.”

The priest described Dehaene as someone you could trust. “He was true to his word, true to people, true to Club Brugge.”

Photo: courtesy De Standaard