Building permit granted for detention centre project in Jumet

Publié le 21/02/2026 par Getting the Voice Out  - Read this post in Français, Nederlands

Article written jointly with the independent media Bruxelles Dévie

Despite the recent victory in blocking the building permit last September, the project for a new detention centre in Jumet (near Charleroi airport) is still going ahead. The Walloon Minister for Urban Planning and Regional Development, François Desquesnes (Les Engagés), recently granted the building permit, subject to conditions. The facility is designed to accommodate several hundred people described as ‘irregular’ residents, who would be held there administratively in order to deport them from Belgian territory. The mayor of Charleroi, Thomas Dermine (PS), does not seem opposed to the project. Declared an ‘Anti-Fascist City’ in 2023, Charleroi is actually hosting a project that embodies fascism.

The project dates back to 2017, when it was put on the table by Theo Francken (N-VA), who was then Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration. In 2019, however, the project was halted: the Walloon minister at the time, Carlo Di Antonio (Les Engagés), refused to grant the building permit, following the negative opinions of the administration.

‘We are very angry,’ said Valter Iurlaro of the Ni Jumet, ni ailleurs collective (which is fighting against the detention centre project in Jumet). ‘This decision is incomprehensible. In 2019, Carlo Di Antonio refused the permit. Today, a minister from the same party has granted it, despite the reservations expressed by the administration.’ For opponents of the project, the battle is not over. An appeal for suspension before the Council of State is now being considered.

Detention centres: normalised state violence

Every year, several thousand people are administratively detained in Belgian detention centres in order to be deported to their ‘country of origin’. These places are the embodiement of the most violent aspects of Belgian migration policy, which is a deeply racist one. These centres are part of a colonial legacy, reproducing a hierarchy of mobility: people from (former) colonising countries move freely, while those from (former) colonised countries are restricted, controlled and reduced to an exploitable labour force.

The conditions of detention in these centres are regularly denounced as inhumane by the people who are kept locked up there by the Belgian state. In early October, Mahmoud, a young Palestinian asylum seeker, took his own life at the 127bis detention centre (near Zaventem). Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case: according to the collective Getting the Voice Out, deaths occur every year in Belgian detention centres. These deaths are neither accidents nor exceptions. They are the direct consequences of the repressive regime and the racist and deadly migration policies the government applies.

When far-right rhetoric becomes mainstream

In 2019, however, the Charleroi municipal council said it was ‘firmly opposed to the project’ and claimed it would do ‘everything in its power to block this project, which was desired and imposed by the federal government’. At the time, the PS was in political opposition at the federal level.

At the end of 2019, the party joined the Vivaldi coalition in the federal government. The lives of undocumented migrants seem to have carried little weight in the face of government politics. Paul Magnette (PS, who was then mayor of Charleroi) reneged on his commitments and, worse still, unashamedly repeated the words, frameworks and lies of the far right in his statements on the detention centre project in Jumet.

In its City Project 2019-2024, Charleroi nevertheless proclaimed itself an ‘inclusive city’, committing to ‘use all legal means to oppose the construction of detention centres on its territory’. In 2024, Paul Magnette then declared that he would ‘assume responsibility’ for the enforcement of orders to leave the territory (OQT) for people in so-called illegal residence ‘who have committed criminal acts’, citing in particular drug trafficking and human trafficking. This statement perpetuates a dangerous confusion that is widely used in politics: associating people without residence permits with the word ‘criminals’.

The idea that people held in detention centres are ‘criminals’ is fallacious: it perpetuates a racist stereotype that associates people without residence permits with danger. But they are detained in these centres by the Belgian state for one reason only: not having the ‘right papers’. Yet it is the Belgian state that refuses to grant them residence permits and continues to restrict legal migration channels. Portraying these people as dangerous and threatening allows the government to justify increasingly repressive and violent migration policies in the eyes of the public.

A detention centre is a far-right political project

Political scientists generally agree on three central characteristics of the far right: nationalism, inequality and security, a definition coined by the president of the Ligue des droits humains, Sibylle Gioe, and researcher François Debras. These three dimensions are at the very heart of the existence and functioning of detention centres.

  • Firstly, nationalism, since they exclude certain people from the territory on the basis of their nationality.
  • Secondly, inequality, because they organise a radical difference in treatment between people from the European Union and others.
  • Finally, securitarianism, which manifests itself in the deprivation of liberty, confinement, barbed wire, permanent surveillance, etc.

The border system allows the free movement of goods, tourists and expatriates, but brutally closes itself off to migrants whom it deems unwelcome on its soil. It thus legalises racism and uses detention centres as a tool of control, repression and expulsion.

By accepting this project for a detention centre in Jumet, the city of Charleroi is participating in a racist continuum historically defended by the far right. By presenting immigration as a threat and legitimising increasingly violent security measures, the municipal council (PS and Engagés) is playing along.

Nevertheless, it is important to remember that detention centres and the repression of migration are not solely projects promoted by the far right: these are discourses disseminated by all political parties in Belgium, both left and right. The positions of the PS and Engagés on the detention centre project in Jumet are proof of this.

There is no such thing as humane detention

‘Incarceration in detention centres can only be conceived of conditions that fully respect human dignity,’ says Thomas Dermine, the current mayor of Charleroi.

The so-called left-wing parties congratulate themselves on having enshrined in law the prohibition of locking up children: after numerous negotiations, the Vivaldi government reached an agreement in 2023, enshrining in law that a child cannot be locked up because of their residence status. Thomas Dermine was quick to point this out, with a certain pride. However, the Arizona government agreement did not guarantee this in the long term: it provides for a review of the law after two years, suggesting that a legal return to the detention of children remains possible in the future. In addition, there are still detention centres, which are also comparable to the detention of children.

When it comes to children, the outrage is unanimous. For others, detention becomes acceptable, provided it is described as ‘humane’. But what does humane detention mean? Is it even possible?

People detained in detention centres tell a very different story.

‘It’s getting worse and worse here. Dogs are treated better than humans. There are no words,’ says R., from the detention centre in Bruges.

The collective Getting the Voice Out shares and amplifies the voice of people locked up in detention centres. These people describe the devastation caused by detention, which is arbitrary and with no release date. The threat of imminent deportation hanging over their heads. Repression, physical and psychological violence by centre staff and guards. The appalling sanitary conditions, including numerous bedbug infestations. The bland, insufficient meals. And so many other horrors.

The message conveyed by Getting the Voice Out is clear: a detention centre, even with ‘better conditions of detention’, is neither humane nor acceptable. It is the deprivation of liberty itself that is destructive and deadly. It is the fact that the Belgian state arrests, detains and deports people it considers ‘undesirable’ that must be denounced.

An ongoing mobilisation

Although the permit has been granted by the Walloon Region, the battle is not over yet. Legal appeals and mobilisation by activists, associations, trade unions and citizens remain essential. The CSC Charleroi – Sambre et Meuse, a confederation of Christian trade unions, is clearly opposed to the project. Local collectives, activists and those affected refuse to allow detention to remain a silent norm.

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