- Waiting times of up to 1 hour 30 minutes were reported when French citizens living in the grand duchy voted on Sunday. Around 24,000 French expats in Luxembourg were registered to vote in the first round of France’s presidential election. 17 polling stations were set up in the Lycée français Vauban, in Limpertsberg.
- The new managing director of LeasePlan in Belgium and Luxembourg said the changing automotive market was behind the restructuring that led to 19 out of the company’s 70 employees in the grand duchy being made redundant. LeasePlan has a major digitalisation initiative and “the group has set an objective to offer a fleet of ‘zero emission’ vehicles by 2030,” John Portier said in an interview. The company manages more than 9,000 leases and claims it has about 20% marketshare.
- There were 808 asylum applications filed between 1 January and 15 April. That’s according to Jean Asselborn, the LSAP foreign affairs and immigration minister. While 808 was a rise of 30% over the same period last year, it is roughly half the figure filed in 2015.
- Luxembourg granted citizenship at the highest rate, relative to its population, within the EU in 2015. The grand duchy naturalised 5.6 people per 1,000 inhabitants, reported Eurostat, the EU statistics bureau. The EU average was 1.7 per 1,000. Out of 3,195 naturalisations, 79% were granted to EU nationals. 21% were granted to non-EU citizens, the lowest rate in the union.
- Laurent Mosar is the most influential Luxembourg politician on Twitter. That’s according to a study by Clement & Weyer, a social media consulting firm, for Paperjam. Mosar is the CSV deputy speaker of parliament. Étienne Schneider, the LSAP deputy prime minister, is second most influential, and François Bausch, the Green infrastructure minister, is third. The “Leader Index” is calculated using the number of Twitter followers and each account’s rate of engagement.