Building Peace in Luxembourg: An Interview with Gilbert Pregno
PEACE DIALOGUES IN LUXEMBOURG
Interview questions
Gilbert Pregno
Dear Gilbert,
Thank you warmly for agreeing to take part in the “Peace Dialogues in Luxembourg” initiative. Drawing on your long experience as a psychologist, systemic psychotherapist, institutional leader and human rights advocate, these questions invite you to reflect on how peace is built in practical terms within families, institutions and Luxembourg society.
There is no prescribed length for your answers. You may respond as briefly or as fully as you wish and, if you prefer, leave some questions unanswered. Your answers will be presented as your personal reflections, not as the official position of any institution or organisation with which you are or have been associated. Please do not mention confidential information about individuals, families or particular situations.
1. Peace beyond the absence of violence
Question — Omid Attar
Peace is often defined as the absence of war or overt violence. Yet it may also depend on the quality of relationships, a sense of safety, dignity and the opportunity to be heard.
After several decades of work with children, families and institutions in Luxembourg, what does a society truly at peace mean to you? Has your personal understanding of peace changed over the course of your career?
Answer — Gilbert Pregno
I believe we should not think about peace solely in terms of the absence of war, just as health is not defined by the absence of illness. A fish does not know what water is, and I would tend to think that peace can be lived without necessarily having to define it. It is a state of well-being, carefreeness, contentment, happiness and serenity, coming together in many dimensions.
But if I must talk about it, I would speak of inner peace. It is rooted in our personality and has its origins in early childhood. As Sigmund Freud wrote, a child is born psychologically premature. The world in which that child lives will take shape internally through an attachment formed with one or two people around them. That attachment must be “secure,” as we call it. This means that an inner sense of safety develops through the attention, care, communication and continuity surrounding the child. All this lays the foundations of personality, like the foundations of a house. The aim is for the child to learn to love themselves. For one has to love oneself in order to love others. I often see that this does not happen, for various reasons, and this can lead to a lack of inner security, a fragility. Depending on the events that child encounters as they grow older, they may feel overwhelmed by fears and distress that unsettle them. No house is without cracks, and that does not call the solidity of the building into question. The same is true of our personality, whose complexity our brain is not able to grasp.
Peace also presupposes the rule of law, which underpins human rights and makes dignity a cornerstone. Dignity is, as I like to put it, the older sister of all other rights: it has suffered greatly in recent decades, but it remains indispensable. The rule of law establishes a framework for citizens that guarantees the primacy of law, which applies to everyone.
My involvement in the Consultative Commission on Human Rights, which I chaired for many years, introduced me to areas I had not known about. I learned that phenomena such as human trafficking exist in Luxembourg, and that some companies take no interest in due diligence or in victims of serious violations of dignity and human rights throughout the value chain.
There is the issue of children being imprisoned in a prison for adults. This has existed for a long time, but has taken on a different scale: 30 children, the youngest of whom was 12, were held in those conditions from January to September 2026, which is utterly scandalous. I must also mention climate change, an economy perceived as the foundation of humanity, and wars in many places. All this creates an environment that makes us doubt the future, which is no longer what we had hoped for. It deeply affects young people, who wonder what the world will be like in 5, 10 or 20 years. And they may ask what we did to prevent this development.
Because of my profession as a psychotherapist, I know many painful stories, and sometimes I feel as though I have lived several lives. I have become resilient in the sense that few accounts I hear surprise or disturb me: I have equipped myself with flexible armour coated in Teflon, which I put on at times. That was the case very recently when I met someone who had been evacuated from the Gaza Strip and who showed me photographs of his son, whose skull had been shattered by gunfire.
There is one part of my life, the personal and private part, in which I am very fortunate and which allows me to flourish with dear people around me. And there is another part, the professional one, in which I am troubled by what I hear: children who are increasingly unwell, ever more frequent accounts of sexual boundary violations, people who are not doing well. But I remain optimistic, because a life without optimism is a mistake. And we must be optimistic, especially for our little ones, and support them as they develop.
2. Migration, language and a sense of belonging
Question — Omid Attar
Settling in a new country involves more than learning a language or completing administrative procedures. It often means rebuilding points of reference, relationships, a social identity and the feeling of having a recognised place in society. In Luxembourg, multilingualism can be an asset, but it can also become a barrier to participation for some newcomers.
Beyond learning the language, what do migrants and refugees need in order to develop a genuine sense of belonging in Luxembourg? How can institutions and the host society foster integration based not only on newcomers adapting, but also on recognition, reciprocity and dialogue?
Answer — Gilbert Pregno
I am myself the child of immigration: my father fled poverty and came to Luxembourg after a difficult journey, while my mother was born here to parents who had also left Italy. When you are an immigrant, you no longer truly belong to the country you left, nor to the host country. Uprooting, and a process of putting down roots that “stalls” and searches for its way, create a difficult situation. I observe that it is often the following generations who develop more stable roots. It is therefore a process that takes time. Our psyche is slow, as I like to point out, and cannot detach itself from one lived experience and install another the way one can with a computer program.
We live in a multicultural society, and I like that very much. It enriches me because it broadens my horizons. I enjoy talking with people from other countries, whose culture differs from mine and who have “their own” skin colour. In this respect, we should remember that our ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago were all Black, and that their skin colour changed when they migrated to less warm countries.
I am deeply concerned about the situation of refugees. Many years ago, Michel Rocard said that France could not take in all the misery of the world. Luxembourg even less so. But when I hear, for example, about the living conditions of refugees, I am shocked. And when a member of the government says that this is because we have too many refugees, that is “PR,” of the kind often heard in politics. In fact, it is a lie!
3. Non-cooperation as a message to institutions
Question — Omid Attar
You have worked extensively with families who did not ask for help or were considered “non-cooperative.” A refusal to cooperate can sometimes express earlier experiences of failure, fear, humiliation or a loss of trust.
What does a person’s or family’s non-cooperation reveal about their relationship with professionals and institutions? How can an institution rebuild trust without imposing dialogue or automatically treating resistance as a problem belonging solely to the other person?
Answer — Gilbert Pregno
Many social-sector professionals take the view that people who come for help must know from the outset what their objective is: we speak of “requests” that should allow an intervention to be put in place. Often that is not the case. We then tend to say that these people lack motivation. This view actually protects the practitioner, who need not concern themselves with the limitations of their work. I see things differently. When we listen to and analyse the life stories of many people, we find that they have dealt with numerous support services. Reasons can be found both in the organisation and operation of those services and in family history for why these people are no longer particularly motivated to meet other professionals. A lack of courage, a lack of interest! I have developed the idea that, at that point, refusing to cooperate is a kind of solution. It is a way of avoiding another failure, and in order to protect oneself it is preferable not to engage. Our approach then is to go and meet these people, to hear what they have to say about their past experiences, and from there to see how we can put in place a form of support that is useful. I like to think of myself as an expert in small goals: it is better to succeed with a more limited objective than to fail because the ambitions are too great.
4. Protecting without hurting: children’s rights and institutional responsibility
Question — Omid Attar
A decision taken to protect a child may be legally justified, while the way it is carried out may nevertheless cause trauma, humiliation or a lasting breakdown of trust.
How can institutions exercise their duty to protect while respecting the dignity of the child and their family? At what point can a legally correct procedure become a form of institutional violence and thus undermine the peace it seeks to protect?
Answer — Gilbert Pregno
It is important to have a law that allows a youth judge to intervene when children are at risk and all other interventions by support services have failed. The situation in Luxembourg is very particular in that our youth protection law dates from 1992. Many attempts have been made to reform this law, but all have failed, and we are now discussing new bills that, as they currently stand, are very incomplete and imprecise. I have many questions about this institutional neglect, which undermines the defence of children’s rights. It also appears that in Luxembourg there is a strong tendency towards judicial intervention, so that in many cases a youth judge is called upon because situations are not improving. We must never forget that children feel a strong loyalty to their parents, even where the parents do not give them what they need, or indeed mistreat them. We must take that into account and do everything possible to maintain or develop that bond. This is not always possible, and that is where the judiciary has a role to play! Why is reform of our youth protection law taking so long when it has been criticised by numerous national and international institutions? There is, on the one hand, a lack of legislative-drafting expertise in the ministries and parliament, and, on the other, considerable resistance from the judiciary, which does not take into account the values of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Luxembourg acceded 33 years ago, or the judgments handed down by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. I am very concerned about this situation.
5. The possibilities and limits of mediation
Question — Omid Attar
Dialogue and mediation can help restore relationships, but they must not conceal violence, coercion or serious imbalances of power. This question becomes particularly sensitive when children or other vulnerable people are involved.
In what circumstances can mediation genuinely contribute to protection, accountability and rebuilding a relationship? Conversely, when must we recognise that mediation should stop or give way to stronger legal, psychological or institutional protection?
Answer — Gilbert Pregno
Mediation is an approach of great richness that makes it possible to reach agreements on disputed issues. I have not mastered the techniques of mediation, but in the sense of transdisciplinarity as defined by Edgar Morin, I am able to follow and even understand the stages of a mediation process. Mediation makes it possible to find a way out of a dispute. I would venture to say that it creates a kind of equality through the acceptance of a loss, allowing us to move to another level of understanding. Our psyche is conservative in the sense that it likes to repeat what it knows. Paul Watzlawick discussed this in his book “How to Make Yourself Miserable,” suggesting, in a sense, that we are experts in our own failures. Going round in circles, even when painful, provides a certain comfort and reassurance. Mediation opens a door that may until then have been invisible.
6. Professional downgrading, psychological health and positive peace
Question — Omid Attar
Some migrants and refugees arrive in Luxembourg with a high level of education, skills and extensive professional experience. Yet non-recognition of qualifications, language requirements, and a lack of professional networks or local experience may lead them to work for a long time in jobs far below their qualifications. This downgrading can affect professional identity, self-esteem and a sense of social usefulness, with possible effects on psychological health and family relationships.
From a systemic perspective, how do you understand the effects of this professional downgrading on individuals, their families and their integration into Luxembourg society? What should institutions, employers and support professionals do to prevent this loss of confidence and better recognise these people’s skills? Can a society truly speak of positive peace when some of its residents are persistently prevented from putting their abilities to work for the community?
Answer — Gilbert Pregno
It is a problem I have heard about. We need to learn to integrate people from different backgrounds better. I like to say that we are equal because we are all different from one another. But this difference is even greater when people come from another culture or country and have sometimes had a very difficult journey. We all stand to gain from integration; we must regard it as an asset. We need the knowledge of other people who want to become part of our community, and so there are barriers to overcome.
7. Better institutions to prevent conflict
Question — Omid Attar
Professionals in justice, education, mental health, social work and mediation often work with the same people, but under different responsibilities, vocabularies and institutional approaches.
How can Luxembourg create more coherent cooperation among these professions so that tensions are identified earlier and prevented from worsening? What place should supervision, ethical reflection and dialogue among institutions have in preventing professionals from becoming, despite themselves, part of the problem?
Answer — Gilbert Pregno
In my own field, I see that there are many institutions and services, while the process of connecting all that exists has been overlooked. We benefit from the wealth of a country and from a political commitment that makes many resources available. Nevertheless, this needs to be organised so that it does not become a collection of small, isolated and fragmented parts. At the risk of being provocative, I sometimes like to say that all these services work a little like a centipede in which each leg has its own brain. I see cases in which a family is supported by three, four or five different services, where a huge amount of time passes between the reporting of difficulties and the provision of support measures. There is also another neglect that arises because we consider the child only once they are of school age, whereas we should make an effort to take early childhood into account. On top of that is a creeping, pervasive and very costly bureaucracy, even though it was originally created to make procedures easier. None of what I have just written is a criticism of the professionals, among whom I see strong commitment.
8. Turning experience into action for peace
Question — Omid Attar
A future independent, nonprofit institute in Luxembourg could bring together applied research, education, dialogue, mediation and the defence of human dignity. To be useful, it would need to respond to a real need and produce tangible results.
Which need that is still insufficiently addressed in Luxembourg should such an institute tackle first? What concrete initiative should it begin with, and what principles should guide its work so that it inspires trust, protects its independence and contributes in a lasting way to a more peaceful society?
Answer — Gilbert Pregno
I believe an effort is needed to raise awareness so that the idea of peace becomes an integral part of social life. In recent years I have observed a significant loss of shared values. There is also a lack of empathy resulting from an individualism that makes us operate within a self-sufficient bubble, a kind of isolation. The pandemic accelerated this process. Let us recall the force of Hannah Arendt’s words when she wrote: “The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to descend into barbarism.” Nevertheless, I also see a great many deeply committed people whose voices are not heard and who are very generous in all they do to help others in difficulty: poor people and beggars, sick people, people without a home, isolated people, and so on. In this regard I have developed the notion of the banality of good, by which I mean this effective commitment that exists and that we need to recognise, because it is remarkable.
English translation of the French interview. The French original is authoritative; the views expressed are Gilbert Pregno’s personal reflections.
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