[5] Since December 2011 he had been facing criminal charges[6] in connection with the allegedly opaque financial arrangements of his local football club, which he formerly chaired.

[3] Following local government boundary changes, he became the alderman responsible for youth and sport in the newly enlarged municipality,[8] serving under the mayor Robert Devos.

[3] As mayor he is credited with having attracted a large number of new businesses to Mouscron, and overseeing a sustained period of remarkable economic resurgence, which came after decades of steady decline between the 1930s and the 1970s, as the town's fortunes mirrored those of the shrinking Belgians textiles industry on which it had long since come to depend.

[9] On the national stage, in February 1981 he also took over from Devos as a member of the lower house of the Belgian Parliament, representing his local electoral district of Doornik-Aat-Moeskroen / Tournai-Ath-Mouscron.

The driving issue involved his local football club, Royal Excelsior Mouscron, of which for many years Detremmerie was the president.

[14] “On ne peut pas nier qu’il a fait des choses incroyables pour la ville de Mouscron.

However, the financial rescue proved temporary, and in 2011 Detremmerie's role became the subject of criminal charges involving alleged covert funding, forgery, making used of forged documents with intent to defraud, misappropriation and fraudulent conversion.