Tourcoing is a city in northern France on the Belgian border. It is designated municipally as a commune within the department of Nord. Located to the north-northeast of Lille, adjacent to Roubaix, Tourcoing is the chef-lieu of two cantons and the fourth largest city in the French region of Hauts-de-France ranked by population with about 97,000 inhabitants.
International Consumer Research & Testing (ICRT) is a global consortium of more than 40 consumer organisations dedicated to carrying out joint research and testing in the consumer interest.
Fnac is a French multinational retail chain specializing in the sale of entertainment media and consumer electronics.
The Entente Florale Europe is an international horticultural competition established to recognise municipalities and villages in Europe for excellence in horticultural displays. Trophies are presented annually by tourist boards and horticultural societies of European countries. There are three categories:
Paul Magnette is a Belgian politician. Since 2019, he is the leader of the Socialist Party, social democratic French-speaking party in Belgium. Since 2012, he is also mayor of Charleroi. At academic level, he is a former political science professor at the Free University of Brussels (ULB) and Director of the Institute of European Studies of the ULB. He was appointed minister in the Belgian federal government from 2007 to 2013 and was Minister-President of Wallonia from 2014 to 2017. He also was a member of the Senate of Belgium, of the Parliament of Wallonia and of the Parliament of the French Community.
Jean-Pierre Thiollet is a French writer and journalist.
Abdelkader Belliraj is a Moroccan-Belgian citizen who was found guilty in 2009 of arms smuggling and planning terrorist attacks in Morocco.
The Union des progressistes juifs de Belgique is a Belgian Jewish organization set up in 1939 as Solidarité juive by antifascist Jews in Belgium, becoming in 1946 Solidarité juive, aide aux victimes de l'oppresseur nazi. It took on its present name in 1969.
Les Pastoureaux, also known as the Petits Chanteurs de Waterloo, is a Belgian choir of boys and men based in Waterloo, Belgium. It was established in 1974 and is currently conducted by Philippe Favette. Their repertoire includes works of sacred music as well as songs of the world.
Test Aankoop (Dutch) or Test Achats (French) is a Belgian non-profit consumer organization which promotes consumer protection. It was founded in 1957 and publishes research in a subscription magazine.
The Union Internationale des Avocats (UIA) or International Association of Lawyers is an international non-governmental organisation, created in 1927, that brings together more than 2,200 legal professionals from all over the world.
The French language became an international language, the second international language alongside Latin, in the Middle Ages, "from the fourteenth century onwards". It was not by virtue of the power of the Kingdom of France : '"... until the end of the fifteenth century, the French of the chancellery spread as a political and literary language because the French court was the model of chivalric culture". Consequently, it was less as a centralising monarch than as a "gentle courtly prince" that the king unwittingly spread his language" and "the methods of expansion were not political"'. This status continued to grow into the 18th century, by which time French was the language of European diplomacy and international relations.
The Centre d'action laïque is the umbrella organisation of numerous secularist associations in French-speaking Belgium since 1969. It is integrated in the Central Secular Council, which also coordinates deMens.nu in Flanders.
Dragone is a Las Vegas and Luxembourg based creative company specializing in the creation of large scale theater shows. It was founded in 2000 by Franco Dragone. Formerly known as Franco Dragone Entertainment Group (FDEG), the company became Dragone in 2014. The company, previously based in La Louvière, Belgium, has created in excess of forty "permanent shows", in addition to events in more than 12 countries across Europe, the Middle East, in the United States, South America and Asia.
Jordan Bardella is a French politician who has been the president of the National Rally (RN) since 2022, previously serving as acting president from September 2021 to November 2022 and as vice-president from 2019 to 2022. Bardella has also served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 2019, when he was the lead candidate for the RN in the European Parliament election, and has been a regional councillor of Île-de-France since 2015.
The MRAX is a Belgian organization. It succeeded the Movement for the Fight against Racism, Anti-Semitism and for Peace in 1966, becoming a non-profit organization on October 7, 1975.
The Action Committee for the United States of Europe, colloquially referred to as the Monnet Committee, was a collective initiative spearheaded by Jean Monnet from 1955 to 1975 that aimed at accelerating European integration through informal dialogue among key political and trade unions leaders. It was a civil society endeavor that lied outside of any formal policymaking process, but involved the direct participation of organizations that collectively wielded overwhelming decision-making power within its geographical scope, namely the participating countries of the European Coal and Steel Community and from 1958 of the European Communities.
Eugénie Hamer was a Belgian journalist, writer and activist. Her father and brother served in the Belgian military, but she was a committed pacifist. Involved in literary and women's social reform activities, she became one of the founders of the Alliance Belge pour la Paix par l'Éducation in 1906. The organization was founded in the belief that education, political neutrality, and women's suffrage were necessary components to peace. She was a participant in the 18th Universal Peace Congress held in Stockholm in 1910, the First National Peace Congress of Belgium held in 1913, and the Hague Conference of the International Congress of Women held in the Netherlands in 1915. This led to the creation of the International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace, subsequently known as the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). Hamer co-founded the Belgian chapter of the WILPF that same year. During World War I, she volunteered as a nurse and raised funds to acquire medical supplies and create an ambulance service.
