Belgium's new Miss reflects country's political divisions

An odd title for a piece perhaps, but there's surely a good deal of truth to it.

If France thought it had problems choosing a Miss to represent it at upcoming international beauty pageants, then surely they pale in significance when compared to those of its smaller northeastern neighbour Belgium.

Miss Belgium 2011, Justine De Jonckheere (screenshot from an interview on RTL-TVi)

The election as Miss Belgium of 18-year-old Justine De Jonckheere from the town of Wevelgem in West Flanders earlier this month seems to underline, as far as some of her competitors from the French-speaking part of country are apparently concerned, the linguistic disparities that exist among the population of almost 11 million people.

All right, so that might be putting the matter a little strongly, but for Lucie Demaret, the candidate from the French-speaking province of Hainaut, the competition was unfairly weighted towards representatives from Dutch-speaking Flanders.

And when the jury composed of, what the certainly not unbiased French language regional Belgian daily La Nouvelle Gazette pointed out to its readers, five Dutchophones and two Francophones announced the final five whose names would be put forward to a public vote, it was "obvious" to Demaret that the competition had been "fixed".

"I immediately understood their strategy," the 22-year-old, described by the paper as a "multilingual political science student with a dream figure", said.

"They simply eliminated the candidate who could overshadow Justine De Jonckheere."

That was a point of view shared by another French-speaking contestant, Lara Binet.

As Miss Liège she reportedly won the text message vote from viewers and was entitled to an automatic place in the final five.

But she too was eliminated and, according to another French language daily in Belgium, La Dernière Heure, her family has accused the organising committee of cheating.

That's a claim the president of the organising committee, Darline Devos, rejects.

She said the competition reflected "the diversity that exists within Belgium" and insists the winner was elected according to the rules.

"Nobody can 'buy' the title," she told the French-speaking Belgian website L'Avenir.

"It's not 'for sale', and I simply wish the best contestant is elected Miss Belgium."

Now this might all seem like "handbags at dawn" stuff. But there is a serious side to it as the French national daily Le Monde points out.

It is, suggests the paper, just another example of the problems Belgium is currently facing with not even a beauty contest being "immune".

In other words, as incredible as it might seem, the election of a new Miss somehow reflects the country's political divisions.

Not so far fetched perhaps given the fact that Belgium has been without an elected government since June last year and there is currently a political stalemate which the BBC (among others) puts down to growing divisions between the Dutch-speaking Flemish majority (just over six million) and the French-speaking Walloon minority (just over three million).

Justine De Jonckheere : Miss Belgique 2011 Vidéo Video-i-Buzz sélectionnée dans Actualité

Investigation to be launched into passenger revolt at Toulouse airport

France's junior minister of transport, Thierry Mariani, has called for an enquiry into the events of Saturday evening at Toulouse's Blagnac international airport which saw passengers aboard a Moroccan lowcost Jet4you 'plane stage what has widely been reported as a "mutiny".

Jet4you 'plane on the tarmac at Blagnac airport, Toulouse (screenshot BFM TV)

But he remained guarded in an interview on national radio, stressing that, "Passengers taking over an aircraft could not be approved."

"We'll try to find out what really happened, and if the company is at fault, there will be sanctions," he told Europe 1 radio on Sunday.

"But the pilot must be the person who is in charge on a 'plane," he added.

The 137 passengers aboard the Casablanca-bound 'plane refused to buckle their seat belts after the captain informed them that the aircraft would be making unscheduled stops in the French cities of Bordeaux and Lyon to pick up other passengers; adding another six hours to what would normally have been a 90 minute journey.

They demanded that the company provide a direct flight to their destination.

What happened next was reminiscent of a similar incident just last month which saw angry Ryanair passengers refuse to leave one of its 'planes when it arrived in the Belgian city of Liège after being diverted from its original destination Beauvais in northern France - 342 kilometres away.

The pilot of the Jet4you 'plane cancelled the flight, allowed those who wanted to, to disembark, cut the lights and heating and left the remaining 85 passengers on board in the dark.

And that's where they spent the whole of Saturday night.

Interviewed by BFM television (see video) the following day some of the passengers described how difficult conditions had been on board the 'plane with children crying and everyone being cold and hungry, and they criticised the airline's lack of professionalism.

Once again it seems a low-cost airline takes the term "budget" to mean that it can do and say anything.

In Ryanair's case it was to have their passengers arrive almost 350 kilometres away from their scheduled destination.

For Jet4you, it seemed more than acceptable to triple the duration of a trip to suit its own planning.

On Sunday the company informed passengers that it would fly them directly to Casablanca in the evening.

But somehow doesn't it all seems rather a lose-lose situation, both for the passengers who spent a miserable night on the tarmac and the airline, which hardly did anything for its PR image?

Angry Ryanair passengers stage a sit-in

Ryanair Boeing 737-800 (Wikipedia, photographer Adrian Pingstone)

Lowcost airline Ryanair might well be the cheapest way for many Europeans to fly from point A to point B, but it surely needs a lesson or two on how to treat its passengers.

During the night of Tuesday to Wednesday more than 100 of them refused to leave one of its 'planes after it arrived in the Belgian city of Liège after being diverted from its original destination Beauvais in northern France - 342 kilometres away.

Beauvais of course is the town Ryanair refers to as "Paris" on its list of destinations, even though it is in fact almost 80 kilometres from the French capital.

Most of those on board were reportedly French, returning from holidays in Morocco, and their night of misery began when the flight left - three hours late - from the Moroccan city of Fez.

Unable to land in Beauvais because it was too late and the airport was closed, the 'plane was diverted to Liège, not a destination to which the airline normally flies, and landed late in the evening at 11.30pm.

But the passengers hadn't been alerted ahead of time according to one of them, Mylene Netange.

"The plane didn't land in Beauvais but in Liege without warning us," she told Agence France Presse.

"Consequently, we refused to leave the plane."

The passengers reportedly refused to be budged for four hours, demanding that an alternative means of getting home be provided.

Remember they were over 300 kilometres away from where they should have been.

But their protests seem to have fallen on deaf ears as far as Ryanair was concerned.

Instead they were left sitting in the dark after the pilot and cabin crew had disembarked and it was airport officials who took over the task of trying to negotiate with them and arrange alternative transportation.

Great PR for Ryanair who, as the French daily Libération points out, only a few days ago announced a net half-year of €424 million.

There must be a moral somewhere in this tale.