Maxime Prévot (; born April 9, 1978) is a Belgian politician who is currently the president of the Les Engagés party and has served as the Mayor of

Namur Namur (; ; nl, Namen ; wa, Nameur) is a city and municipality in Wallonia, Belgium. It is both the capital of the province of Namur and of Wallonia, hosting the Parliament of Wallonia, the Government of Wallonia and its administration. Namu ...

since 2012.

Biography

Prévot was born in

Mons Mons (; German and nl, Bergen, ; Walloon and pcd, Mont) is a city and municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the province of Hainaut, Belgium. Mons was made into a fortified city by Count Baldwin IV of Hainaut in the 12th century. T ...

in 1978 to a middle-class family. He spent part of his upbringing in

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

. Prévot studied political science at the

University of Namur A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

and then completed a law conversion course at UCLouvain before working for

PricewaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting ...

. Prévot first became involved in politics when he joined the youth chapter of the cdH in Namur. During the 2006 municipal elections in Belgium, he was elected as a councilor on the Provincial Council of Namur. In 2012, he succeeded Jacques Étienne as Mayor of Namur. In the 2014 Belgian regional elections, he was elected to the Parliament of Wallonia as the number one candidate for the Namur constituency list. In January 2019, former cdH president Benoit Lutgen announced his intention to step down as leader. Prévot entered his name in the leadership race and was subsequently elected as the party's new president with 85% of the vote.

Political positions

Prévot has been described as coming from the more

centre-right Centre-right politics lean to the Right-wing politics, right of the Left–right politics, political spectrum, but are closer to the Centrism, centre. From the 1780s to the 1880s, there was a shift in the Western world of social class structure a ...

camp of the cdH with some of his ideas being close to that of the Mouvement Réformateur. However, he has also described himself as holding progressive opinions on some issues. Following poor results for the cdH during the 2019 elections, Prévot announced a plan to rejuvenate and reorganize the party, including updating its policies and changing its identity and branding. In 2022, the party announced it would change its name from the cdH to ''Les Engagés.'' Franstalige partij CDH wordt Les Engagés

De Standaard ''De Standaard'' (meaning ''The Standard'' in English) is a Flemish daily newspaper published in Belgium by Mediahuis (formerly Corelio and VUM). It was traditionally a Christian-Democratic paper, associated with the Christian-Democratic and F ...

, 12 maart 2022.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Prevot, Maxime 1978 births Living people Members of the Parliament of Wallonia Centre démocrate humaniste politicians 21st-century Belgian politicians People from Mons Université de Namur alumni PricewaterhouseCoopers people Mayors of places in Belgium