Halsema herself is a true art lover. “But not an expert,” she quickly adds. She herself prefers to be portrayed romantically. “I haven’t really thought about where I’m going to hang it yet. That depends on how nice it is for me and the family. And maybe I’ll hang it at work. I don’t know if my family will want to look at my face on a canvas all day long.”
Interview
Halsema says that he finds it very exciting to be portrayed. “That doesn’t happen often. I am often bullied. I know which features in my face like to be magnified.”
Once she’s settled in, Akyol starts the interview. He is especially curious why Halsema became mayor. “In your book you wrote ‘you will not see me with a chain of office’. That is quite special for someone who is now mayor,” he notes.
The mayor agrees. “I had no burning ambition. I was thinking only the mayoralty of Amsterdam. If I ever can, I’ll do it. But I doubted that for a long time. It affects your family and your freedom. It was especially hard for my growing children,” she says.
Family
When Akyol asks her if she never feels guilty about this, Halsema cuts off the conversation. “Of course I sometimes feel guilty about that. But you know, I’m a little tired of talking about the family. That’s a woman’s thing. It is often the woman who is interviewed about the family. Especially for female drivers. That is a question that I think male ministers or mayors rarely get asked, whether they feel guilty about their family.”
Presenter Akyol decides to leave the question about her family for what it is and switches to another topic. He wonders if she is satisfied with anything in her life. “I can be incredibly satisfied with things I’ve done. I am very satisfied with how I have functioned as mayor for the past three years. Not that it was always easy. The moment you find yourself becoming disorganized, you must immediately make the decision that the town needs someone else. You can’t do that to your residents. You do it for the city.”
Read also
Arjen Lubach in ‘Stars on the Canvas’: ‘I may have had a malignant tumor’
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