In a feature entitled “SOS Brussels”, Le Soir worries that the city, which is “a cultural melting pot, is unable to cope with its diversity.” The daily adds that “with 75.6 per cent of its citizens from immigrant backgrounds, the population of the capital is three times as mixed as the one in Wallonia, and five times as the one in Flanders.” Foreigners are expected to account for 83 per cent of the city’s residents in 2023.

Sociologist Corinne Torrekens is quoted by the daily pointing out that —

Brussels is an increasingly cosmopolitan and multicultural city. However, this reality is often perceived as problem rather than a source of cultural wealth. Brussels continues to be an ethnically segregated, and there is a world of difference between the quality of life in districts inhabited by expatriates and EU civil servants, and working class neighbourhoods where most of the population is from immigrant backgrounds.”