Welcome to The Flemish Republic
Why the Belgian federation should be dissolved and Flanders should become an independent state. |
|
 Frequently asked questions
What about French-speakers in Flanders?
Frenchification of Flanders has also been taking place outside Brussels. More and more French-speakers have been settling in the Flemish towns around Brussels. In six of those towns French-speakers receive so-called ‘facilities’: they can address themselves in their own language to the authorities and French-speaking education is organised and paid for by Flanders. Intended as a means of helping French-speakers to assimilate into Flanders, these ‘facilities’ are unfortunately being too often abused to try to make these towns French-speaking. The Flemish authorities spend five million Euros annually on French education in Flanders. In contrast, Wallonia spends nothing on its considerable number of Flemish inhabitants. In the whole of Wallonia there is only one Flemish school (in the once-Flemish town of Komen) that is able to survive only thanks to financial support from Flanders (and which has experienced illegal obstruction by the Walloon authorities).
Here a difference in mentality is obvious: Flemings who move to Wallonia assimilate, whereas French-speakers who move to Flanders start making linguistic demands. As soon as French-speaking immigrants constitute the majority of the population in a Flemish town, they demand a transfer of that town to Wallonia or to the officially bilingual region of Brussels. In this respect, - as in many other respects – the attitudes of Flemings and Walloons differ greatly.
Previous page
|
|
|
