What do Liège’s nine new honorary citizens say about the city?

The City of Liège

Place

Liège

Walloon city that conferred the honorary citizenship distinctions.

Why it matters

Walloon city that conferred the honorary citizenship distinctions.

About

Liège is a city and municipality in the Belgian region of Wallonia, and the capital of the eponymous province. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east of Belgium, not far from borders with the Netherlands and Germany. In Liège, the Meuse meets the river Ourthe. The city is part of the sillon industriel, the former industrial backbone of Wallonia. It is still the principal economic and cultural centre of the region.

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That distinction matters because the ceremony was more than a parade of familiar names. Liège placed a wartime resistance veteran alongside university researchers, an entrepreneur, a festival director, a journalist, a jeweller, an equestrian organiser and a community artist. For residents, it offered a concise statement of what the municipal authorities consider public achievement: service, endurance and the ability to carry the city’s name into wider Belgian and international networks.

The nine newly honoured personalities were Robert Chot, Véronique Piron, Eugène Mathy, Jennifer Wuilquot, Luc De Man, Laure Fagnart, Stefania Tullio Cataldo, Emmanuel Mewissen and Dominique Demoulin. Local broadcaster QU4TRE reported that the city presented ten distinctions during the ceremony when Bouazza’s posthumous honour was included; his daughter Léa represented him. This resolves the apparent discrepancy with La DH’s reference to nine new personalities: nine received new recognition in the August group, while Bouazza’s title dated from 11 February, according to the City of Liège.

Chot, born in Liège in 1923, joined the Resistance in 1942 and later served with the 6th Battalion of Fusiliers during the liberation of Europe, according to the local publication #Liégeois. His inclusion gives the group its strongest historical weight at a moment when direct witnesses to the Second World War are disappearing.

The other recipients describe a city whose influence increasingly travels through institutions and specialised networks. Piron leads a jewellery house founded in central Liège in 1875. Mathy founded the Jumping International de Liège and became an internationally recognised equestrian course designer. Wuilquot, who joined Les Ardentes in 2008 and became its general director in 2025, now leads a festival with a national profile, #Liégeois reported.

De Man was recognised with young people supported by the non-profit Clic Jeunes for a monumental work in Belgian blue stone near La Belle Liégeoise. Demoulin’s distinction reflects her career in Belgian television journalism, while Mewissen was honoured for building the Liège-based Gaming1 and Groupe Ardent businesses in digital entertainment and gaming across European markets.

The clearest institutional connection beyond Belgium comes through Fagnart and Tullio Cataldo. The University of Liège says their research examines Renaissance art, Leonardo da Vinci and the movement of ideas and artworks between Italy, France and the former Low Countries. Fagnart is an F.R.S.-FNRS research director, while Tullio Cataldo has worked with institutions including the Louvre and the École du Louvre. Their selection shows how a municipal honour can recognise scholarship that is locally anchored but European in subject and reach; no EU institution was directly involved in choosing or presenting the awards.

The city describes honorary citizenship as recognition for people whose careers, actions or achievements contribute to Liège’s development or reputation. That celebratory framing is not the only possible view of such titles. DéFi’s Liège organisation argued during a separate controversy involving honorary citizen Patrick Bruel that municipal honours send a political signal about the values a city endorses. QU4TRE reported in May that Mayor Willy Demeyer temporarily withdrew Bruel’s title while serious allegations were under investigation, with the presumption of innocence maintained. The episode illustrates why honorary status is both civic gratitude and a continuing reputational judgement.

Liège has awarded these titles around the 15-August celebrations for years, tying contemporary achievement to one of the city’s most visible popular traditions. The 2026 group broadens that civic story: memory sits beside commerce, scholarship, youth work and entertainment, while several recipients connect Liège to audiences and institutions elsewhere in Belgium and Europe.

The immediate ceremony is complete and the titles carry no reported executive powers or financial benefits. What follows is largely symbolic: the recipients become public representatives of Liège’s chosen identity. The question for future editions will be how the city balances prominence with less visible forms of service, and how transparently it explains the standards behind an honour that speaks in the name of all Liégeois.