An opinion poll published last week in Belgium shows that almost one in every two French-speaking Belgians wants their part of the country, Wallonia, to join France if Belgium disintegrates. It is a major shift in public opinion. Just six months ago, only 23 percent wanted to join France were the country falls apart, as pundits say it may unless the present political crisis over greater rights for Dutch speakers is resolved.
The issue is hypothetical, at least for the moment. Belgium is not about to split into two, a French-speaking south and a Dutch-speaking north (although what might transpire in bilingual Brussels and the small German-speaking community in the southeast is too difficult to even contemplate). The sentiments expressed in the poll are more a reflection of the French-speakers’ sense of discrimination at the hands of the Dutch-speaking majority, sharpened by months of political feuding over the status of a Dutch-speaking suburb of bilingual Brussels which has brought government to a standstill and forced two prime ministers to resign. The sense of discrimination is not without foundation. The Dutch-speaking majority condemns French speakers as lazy and poor; yet it is not laziness that makes French-speaking Wallonia one of the poorest parts of Western Europe; the lion’s share of investment and development spending always stays in Flanders.
However, if divorce were to happen in Belgium, the idea that the French speakers would join France is unlikely. In reality, French-speaking Belgians have very little in common with the French other than language. France is a highly centralist state while the Belgians are strongly attached to regionalism and federalism. The marriage would not work even if polls indicate that 60 percent of French say they would welcome their Belgian colinguists with open arms. A couple of mini states — an independent Wallonia and an independent Flanders — are a far more likely outcome.
The EU views Belgium’s possible disintegration with deep alarm, but in fact the country can be said to be following a trend that is being seen across the continent. Regionalism is the new European dynamic. It has already led to Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia splitting apart and is making headway elsewhere. In the UK, there is a real possibility of divorce between England, Scotland and Wales: Scotland is already governed by nationalists. In Spain, the Basque regional government has demanded even greater autonomy and plans to go for full independence; the Catalans are only mildly less ambitious.
Meanwhile, the divide in Italy between north and south grows stronger. Nor is France immune: Corsica is the big issue on the nationalist front and although such sentiments are currently minimal in Brittany, Alsace, French Savoy and Languedoc, there is every danger that if the Corsicans were to succeed, the passion for secession would spread to those places too. None of this should surprise: Europe has always been more diverse than it seems. There are at least 50 million people in the EU who speak a language indigenous to Europe that is not a member state language. Welsh, Friesian, Breton, Occitan, Catalan, Ruthenian — there are at least three dozen languages other than the main ones, and language creates identities.
The 19th and early 20th centuries saw the creation of powerful large “nation” states in Europe — Italy, Germany, Yugoslavia and more. The end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st is seeing a reverse, a reassertion of an older regionalism. Europe is only in the middle of another transformation. In a few years’ time, its political map may look very different.
