Patrick Dupriez (born 17 February, 1968) is a Belgian French-speaking former politician, who led the

Ecolo Ecolo (), officially Écologistes Confédérés pour l'organisation de luttes originales (, ) is a French-speaking political party in Belgium based on green politics. The party is active in Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region. Ecolo's F ...

party alongside co-chair

Zakia Khattabi Zakia Khattabi (Arabic: ; born 15 January 1976) is a Belgian-Moroccan politician who was the co-president of the Ecolo party. Khattabi was born in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode in Brussels to Moroccan parents. She studied at Université libre de Bruxel ...

from 22 March 2015 until 19 October 2018.

Biography

Patrick Dupriez was born in the Cameroonian capital of Yaounde, before spending the first six years of his life growing up in Côte d'Ivoire, where his father worked as a construction worker. Dupriez later on began attending school in Walloon-Brabant. He studied agriculture at the

Université catholique de Louvain UCLouvain (or Université catholique de Louvain , French for Catholic University of Louvain, officially in English the University of Louvain) is Belgium's largest French-speaking university and one of the oldest in Europe (originally establishe ...

and completed his thesis in Chile. Dupriez participated as a representative of the Belgian Greens at the "

Earth Summit The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Rio de Janeiro Conference or the Earth Summit (Portuguese: ECO92, Cúpula da Terra), was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 ...

" in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, which marked his entry into the Ecolo party, whose ranks he joined in 1985 at the age of 17. He moved to

Ciney Ciney (; ) is a municipality and city of Wallonia located in the province of Namur, Belgium. As of 2018, Ciney had a total population of 16,439. The total area is 147.56 km2 which gives a population density of 111 inhabitants per km2. Admin ...

in 1995.

Career

After his studies, he entered professional life by joining Diobass, an NGO whose objective is to promote the know-how of African farmers' organizations. He then directed the Environmental Education Service of the Province of Namur (the Forest Classes of Chevetogne and the Heritage Classes of Namur) for seven years. In addition to his work of networking educational experiences in the field of environmental education, he implemented the first public market in terms of sustainable food in Wallonia. In 2002, he was elected to the municipal council of Ciney and was a

Schepen A schepen (Dutch, ; . ') or échevin (French, , ) or Schöffe (German, ) is a municipal officer in Belgium and formerly the Netherlands, where it has been replaced by the (a municipal executive). In modern Belgium, the ''schepen'' or ''échevin'' ...

from 2006 to 2009. From 2009 to 2014, he was a member of the

Walloon Parliament The Parliament of Wallonia (, ), or the Walloon Parliament (, ) in the decrees, is the legislative body of Wallonia, one of the three self-governing regions of Belgium (the other two being Flanders and the Brussels-Capital Region). The parliamen ...

for Ecolo, which he chaired as parliamentary president from 2012 to 2014, succeeding his party colleague Emily Hoyos, who left her position to co-lead Ecolo. He was not re-elected to parliament in the 2014 election. In March 2015, he was elected to the dual leadership of Ecolo together with

with 60 percent of the vote at the Ecolo party conference in Charleroi. Dupriez decided to resign from his position on 19 October, 2018, citing "personal reasons".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dupriez, Patrick 1968 births 21st-century Belgian politicians Ecolo politicians Living people Members of the Parliament of the French Community Members of the Parliament of Wallonia People from Ciney Politicians from Yaoundé Université catholique de Louvain alumni