Furious Groningen residents lash out at PM Rutte in talk show interview

Prime Minister Mark Rutte was barely able to get a word out on talk show Pauw en Jinek on Monday night because of a group of furious Groningen residents shouting and booing at him from the audience. They are furious about the VVD government's policy on gas production in their province, AD reports.

"Mr. Rutte drained us for six and a half years. And he is still doing it. He is depicted as a positive politician, an optimist. But you know what an optimist does? Laughs everying away, so he laughs away our problems", one angry audience member said.

Groningen resident Dick Kleijer was given a chance to speak and he explained why he isn't angry, but "furious". "This mister Rutte said here at the table 'we do it properly in Groningen'. Is it proper if tere are 76 thousand damage reports in his reign. Is it proper that a hundred houses be demolished?" he said. "The concept proper is subject to inflation."

Rutte listened with a shaking head to the boos and insults. Between the shouting, Jeroen Pauw explained that the show invites "people from society" to be in the audience, and Monday it was people from Groningen.

Both Pauw and Eva Jinek had to intervene several times to get the audience to quiet down enough for Rutte to reply.

"Gas production in Groningen, of course, over the past five, six years turned from something Groningen, the Netherlands was proud of into a nightmare", Rutte said. He tried to appease the Groningen residents somewhat. "I understand completely how horrible what you experience is. You really do not have to doubt that."