The capital’s population has significantly grown over the past three years and currently stands at 133,000 people. However, only 45,000 people registered to vote in this year’s municipal elections.
The vast majority of Luxembourg City’s population, close to 71%, are foreign residents. Luxembourgers represent the capital’s largest minority group with almost 39,000 people. French residents are in second place with 21,000 people, followed by Portuguese with 12,000 in third place.
A third of all jobs in the Grand Duchy are in Luxembourg City, which might have to do with the fact that the local occupational tax is the lowest in the country. The town is also the home of roughly a fifth of the country’s population.
The growing imbalance between jobs and housing opportunities represents one of the breaking points at the moment. Politicians struggle to expand the existing offer of accommodations while simultaneously improving mobility to connect the different districts.
Luxembourg City might be a stronghold for the Democratic Party (DP), but it is not an impenetrable fortress. The DP has held the mayoral office every term since the end of World War II, apart from the years 1964 to 1969 when the Luxembourg Socialist Workers’ Party (LSAP) was the strongest party in the capital.
The DP lost one seat in each of the last two elections, which means the party currently fills nine out of 27 seats on the municipal council. The Christian Social People’s Party (CSV) is close second with seven seats. Both parties are holding the capital as a coalition government.
It is noteworthy that in theory, the CSV, the LSAP, and the Greens could have formed a coalition government able to oust the DP after every election since 2005, but this union has never actually been formed.
