Why are literacy organisations preparing street action in Charleroi?

The Christian Workers’ Movement branch MOC Charleroi-Thuin and the regional organisation Lire et Écrire Charleroi-Sud Hainaut announced on 4 September that they were preparing street actions across the Charleroi metropolitan area, arguing that successive Walloon budget savings are now jeopardising adult-literacy work. La DH first reported the planned mobilisation, while a campaign document published by MOC Charleroi-Thuin says the threatened activities include literacy classes, outreach to adults who struggle with written language, referrals, local partnerships and training for professional and volunteer tutors. The dates and precise form of every action had not yet been published at the time of reporting.

The dispute centres on more than classroom capacity. Lire et Écrire’s regional network also helps identify adults who may conceal difficulties with reading or writing, directs them towards suitable courses and supports smaller organisations running decentralised programmes. MOC Charleroi-Thuin says the Walloon grant dedicated to this broader work fell by 39% over two years, from €1.549 million to €949,000. Those figures are the organisations’ own calculation and have not been independently audited for this article, but an official Walloon budget document confirms an earlier €160,000 reduction in the appropriation for literacy actions, bringing the proposed credit to €1 million in the 2025 budget.

The immediate concern in Charleroi is that the first services to contract may be those least visible in conventional performance tables. The MOC and Lire et Écrire identify outreach, network-building, learner orientation, teaching tools and support for trainers as particularly exposed. They argue that restricting provision to programmes tied closely to labour-market eligibility would leave out adults who need basic literacy before they can realistically enter an employment pathway. In a metropolitan area where residents routinely have to navigate digital public services, health information, school correspondence and employment procedures, losing that preparatory layer can turn a modest saving into a larger barrier.

Responsibility is institutionally divided. Adult education falls principally within the French Community, commonly called the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, while employment, vocational training, social cohesion and integration measures are largely Walloon competences. Brussels’ French-speaking community commission, COCOF, also participates in the Francophone framework. The Walloon administration says the policy is therefore financed through several channels, including socio-professional integration, social action and local social-cohesion plans. Two cooperation agreements, signed in 2005 and 2023 by Wallonia, the French Community and COCOF, created a permanent steering structure intended to coordinate those policies and assess needs and provision.

That fragmented architecture explains why one headline budget line does not reveal the entire amount reaching literacy work, but it also exposes providers to several simultaneous reforms. MOC Charleroi-Thuin says reductions affecting centres for socio-professional integration amounted to €1.7 million in 2025 and €2.86 million in 2026. It also fears the planned overhaul of APE employment subsidies because those subsidies cover, according to the organisation, 16% of the wage bill in associations such as Lire et Écrire. APE support is a Walloon employment instrument used extensively by municipalities and non-profit services; it is distinct from federal unemployment insurance and from education funding controlled by the French Community.

The government’s frame is one of fiscal consolidation and measurable employment outcomes. The 2024-2029 regional policy declaration of the governing MR–Les Engagés coalition promises to simplify employment assistance, eliminate ineffective mechanisms and transfer APE resources towards ministers responsible for each policy field. It says the transfer should preserve indexation for the non-profit sector and ensure that sectoral missions continue to be met. Pierre-Yves Jeholet, Wallonia’s Vice-President and Minister of the Economy, Industry, Employment, Training, Research and Digital Affairs, has repeatedly presented the wider employment reforms as a way to concentrate public money on programmes producing demonstrable progress towards work.

The literacy organisations contest the suitability of that test for their public. MOC Charleroi-Thuin argues that adults starting with very limited written skills require long, flexible pathways and that stronger results-based steering could encourage operators to select participants who are already closest to employment. The organisation also wants the former €2-an-hour learner allowance restored, administrative demands reduced and employment protected within the regional branches. This is a dispute over policy design as much as spending: the government treats training principally as an instrument of activation, whereas Lire et Écrire and the MOC describe literacy as an enabling right with social, civic and employment benefits that cannot always be captured quickly.

The political opposition has placed the argument within a broader challenge to Walloon austerity. In reporting carried by RTBF, PTB group leader in the Walloon Parliament Germain Mugemangango criticised the non-indexation of APE aid and other measures affecting local authorities, warning that municipalities could lose staff or services. That intervention concerned the general impact on Walloon municipalities rather than the Charleroi literacy campaign specifically. The Union of Cities and Municipalities of Wallonia had estimated that several regional measures could cost municipalities €458.6 million over the legislature, according to the same report.

Charleroi’s own strained finances sharpen the local stakes without making the city solely responsible for the literacy cuts. The city is operating under Wallonia’s Oxygène financial-support framework and has planned a progressive reduction of about 200 municipal posts by 2030, mainly through non-replacement, La DH reported in August. Mayor Thomas Dermine, who leads the city’s PS–Les Engagés majority, said there would be no immediate compulsory dismissals. These municipal pressures reduce the room for local authorities to compensate when regional support for associations weakens.

The broader lesson is that literacy policy sits awkwardly between education, employment and social policy. Lire et Écrire has long estimated that roughly one adult in ten in French-speaking Belgium experiences illiteracy or severe literacy difficulty, although that advocacy estimate should not be read as a new Charleroi-specific measurement. People affected are not one uniform group: they can include adults educated in Belgium, newcomers learning French and workers whose limited written skills have become more disabling as administration and recruitment move online.

The next test will be whether the Charleroi mobilisation produces a formal response from Adrien Dolimont’s Walloon government or negotiations with Minister Jeholet’s administration before the next budget decisions. Organisers still need to specify the timetable and locations of the street actions, while the government would need to clarify how much funding each literacy mission will receive after the APE and training reforms. Until those details are available, the confirmed picture is narrower but consequential: regional savings have reduced dedicated support, providers say essential outreach is already endangered, and a local campaign is moving from institutional warnings towards public mobilisation.