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rfmcdonaldMost of the families living in this well-to-do community on the outskirts of Brussels are French-speaking. But the law for this region of Belgium says that all official town business must be conducted in Flemish.
That means that police reports must be written in Flemish. Voting materials must be issued in Flemish. Seventy-five percent of the books and DVDs purchased for the library must be, yes, in Flemish.
When the mayor of Wemmel, Christian Andries, presides over a town council meeting he is not allowed to utter a single French word, even to translate, or the business at hand may be annulled.
[. . .]
[A] dispute over voting rights for French speakers in Wemmel and a cluster of similar villages [. . .] brought down Belgium’s last government. Unable to resolve the issue after more than three years of trying, Prime Minister Yves Leterme threw in the towel (for the third time) and the king finally accepted his resignation in April. .
In the wake of last month’s elections, talks have begun in hopes of forging a coalition that can lead Belgium. But even the optimists do not expect a new government for months to come.
After the country’s 2007 election it took the Belgians about nine months to form a government. Some analysts say that the main parties are even more split this time, and some wonder whether they may even be witnessing the beginning of the end of Belgium.
“It is hard to know where this will go,” said Lieven De Winter, a professor of politics at the Université Catholique de Louvain, though like many others he believes breaking up the country would be so complicated as to be impossible, largely because neither side would give up Brussels, the capital.
[. . .]
Mr. Andries’s problems pale compared to three other mayors in this Flemish region, called the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde, or BHV. They were elected more than four years ago but have never been officially installed. The issue? They sent voting information, written in French, to the French voters in their communities. In one of the towns, Linkebeek, some 80 percent of the 4,700 inhabitants are French-speaking.
Moncton — an officially bilingual city in the country’s only officially bilingual province, where two-thirds of the citizens consider themselves anglophones — has long struggled with its linguistic identity. But now, an “all-out war” is brewing in southeastern New Brunswick, as Moncton’s city council considers a bylaw requiring all new commercial signs to be bilingual.
“The tension is major,” said Barry Renouf, an English-speaking business owner and member of a local group called "Canadians Against Forced Bilingualism." “It’s an all-out war here — a language war. If this passes, there’s more than one person who will move out of Moncton.”
While friction between the French and English communities has lingered in the past, most famously under anti-bilingualism mayor Leonard Jones four decades ago, the prospect of the bylaw has ignited a heated and very public debate.
A group called ‘‘Say NO to Sign Language Law in Moncton’’ has already sprouted on Facebook. And earlier this week, protesters gathered outside Moncton’s city hall, where councillors have ramped up discussions over the emotionally charged bylaw.
“We are doing consultations in the community and then we will determine the proper course for Moncton,” said Mayor George LeBlanc. “I’d like to see more bilingual signage. The question is whether a bylaw is the proper course to do that.”
The neighbouring city of Dieppe — where three-quarters of the population is francophone — broke legal ground in May, when it became the first municipality in the province to legislate in the area of bilingual signage. Now, the same interest group that pressed for action in Dieppe, the Front commun pour l’affichage bilingue au Nouveau-Brunswick, is pushing Moncton to draft its own bylaw.
