Belgium News Hoax

[Cat]

Did anyone catch the story on the news last night about the broadcast on Belgian TV that Flanders had declared her independence, and that King Albert had abdicated?

Extraordinary!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2505108,00.html

 

[Bugsy]

Oooop's....................................[:D]

[Miki]

I have a few friends born in and around Liège and naturally they are all Walloons. (In fact one of the members on here and I have exhanged emails, as he knows Liège very well also).

They have often told me that they would like the region to quit Belgium and become a department of France, which they were indeed once before. Some bank holidays were (and I believe sporadically still are) often an excuse for the young (and not so young) to have meets and fight the Flemish.  Kind of like the Mods & Rockers but with a little more meaning !!

[Cat]

I know what you mean Miki, Mr Cat comes from a village near Lille.  His father, a Walloon, has some interesting tales to tell about some of his own "encounters" in Belgium.

He also has some fascinating tales about hiding British pilots in his barn during the war, but that's another story.

[Will]

Must have ben my fault (again) having just got back from Belgium.

I wonder why it is that I seem to understand Belgians speaking French perfectly, and understand me too, unlike the French who immediately identify me as English. Maybe it is connected with the fact that Mrs Will, who speaks excellent French with only a very slight accent (so, according to French logic, cannot really be English), is sometimes taken for a Belgian?

 

[Gardian]

[quote user="Will "]

Must have ben my fault (again) having just got back from Belgium.

I wonder why it is that I seem to understand Belgians speaking French perfectly, and understand me too, unlike the French who immediately identify me as English. Maybe it is connected with the fact that Mrs Will, who speaks excellent French with only a very slight accent (so, according to French logic, cannot really be English), is sometimes taken for a Belgian?

[/quote]

Really glad you've said that Will.  Our (residence secondaire) neighbours are Walloon Belgian and we had both remarked how 'pure' (to us) their French seems.  Sorry if 'pure' sounds poncy - it's not meant to - just more like the French we learned at school.

Dominique's mother told me that she and her family emigrated from northern Italy immediately post WWII (when she was about 5yo) in order to find work in the coal mines of the Liege area. I had naively thought that immigration was peculiar to the UK at that time. I guess that there's nothing particularly new about population movement.  

Anyway, they talked this Summer about the 'ascendancy' switching from the south to the north of Belgium (over the last 20 or so years). They feel no affinity to the Flemish in the north.  It's an example of increasing state fragmentation, which we see in eastern Europe, but which we never think could happen closer to home.

Brittany / Wales / where else?

  

[Peterm]

I saw the report and was greatly amused by it - and found it very credible, having lived in Belgium for over 10 years.  It's a terribly dysfunctional country and there seems little love lost between the two halves (there's actualy a third linguistic group, German-speakers in the Eupen-Malmedy region but no-one seems to bother about them much). Certainly my highly intelligent and civilised Flemish Belgian boss didn't hide his contempt for the Francophones, who he felt were stuck in the past and lacked enterprise and drive. We had friends in both groups, and each had tales to tell of people who'd been done down by the other for jobs, promotions etc.

 

Peter

[Miki]

Yes, I  know a few people in Liège with Italian descendancy. There are quite a few there, many amateur/semi pro soccer teams are based on Italian influence.

It wasn't just the mines, the steelworks (Seraing) of which Cockerill (now called CMI and a much more varied enterprise to boot !) was the major player, brought in many people to find work. Friends tell me that although it has been diminished over the decades, Cockerill is again moving forward these days. I have some King Badouin medals from visits to Liège but that's another story..................