Charles Michel becomes Belgian prime minister at the age of 38
New premier fluent in French and Flemish becomes one of Europe's youngest leaders
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 08 October, 2014, 11:31pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 08 October, 2014, 11:31pm
Agence France-Presse in Brussels
Charles Michel
Charles Michel, who became Belgium's prime minister on Tuesday, is a French-speaking liberal who, at 38, is now one of the youngest leaders in Europe.
Bald, bespectacled and sporting a goatee beard, he began his rapid rise to power in the shadow of his father Louis Michel, a former minister and European commissioner.
At the head of a centre-right coalition government that took nearly five months to form after May 25 parliamentary elections, Michel is also Belgium's youngest premier since 1840.
He replaces socialist Elio di Rupo, who had been in a caretaker role since the national elections produced a typically inconclusive result in a country bitterly divided between Flemish and French speakers.
"He is a very determined person, ready to assume his responsibilities, even shake up the established order," one of his colleagues said.
He also described Michel as a "pure intellectual" who is passionate about literature and poetry as well as someone who loves French and Italian cuisine.
Michel has been part of the Belgian political landscape for more than 15 years.
His involvement began as a boy, putting up posters for his father and was 16 when he joined the party's youth group in Jodoigne, on the frontier between French-speaking Wallonia in the south and Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north. At 18, he was elected councillor from the Brabant Wallon province.
A Flemish speaker, a rare skill for a French-speaking politician in Belgium, he became a lawyer in 1995 aged 20 after studying in Brussels and Amsterdam.
Four years later he was elected a member of the federal parliament. In October 2000, aged 25, he became Wallonia's regional minister for internal affairs and services, becoming the youngest minister in Belgian history.
From 2007 to early 2011, Michel served as minister for cooperation, considered a secondary position, but he rose to national prominence in early 2011 when he became head of the Liberals.
With backing from his father and the party's social liberal wing which formed the heart of a group dubbed "Renewal", he led a revolt that pushed aside longstanding leader Didier Reynders, the finance minister who had just suffered an election defeat.
With 20 of the 63 French-speaking seats in parliament, the liberals represent only a quarter of the Francophone electorate, but Michel now has the chance to implement reforms and end the political instability Belgium has endured for a decade.
The nation is divided between the Flemish-speaking north, which tends to be conservative, and the French-speaking, liberal south. After elections in 2010, it took 18 months to form a national government, a world record.
