Belgium Divided As Flanders Pushes for a Messy Divorce

The mayor is a little uncomfortable. 'Could we go somewhere more private to talk?' begs Myriam Delacroix-Rolin. 'This cafe is Flemish-owned. These days things have become so sensitive. I should not be heard speaking French in there.'

On Tuesday, Belgium marks its first 100 days without a government. There is every reason to believe that the Belgians, and the rest of us, will have to get used to it. The questions now are how will the divorce of Flanders and Wallonia be consummated, and what will become of Brussels, home to the EU and Nato? More worryingly, the demise of Belgium - a sticking plaster over the fault line between Europe's Protestant north and Catholic south - could make Europe a more dangerous place.

'Flanders has systematically organised its independence over 35 years,' said Delacroix-Rolin, a French-speaker fighting to save her village of Rhode Saint Genese, nine miles south of Brussels, from becoming Flemish. 'If they succeed here, they will move on to Brussels. We're like the moat around the castle.'

French-speaking Brussels - whose cultural and linguistic affinity is with Wallonia to the south - sits like an island in Flemish-speaking Flanders. So do the 18,000 souls of Rhode. Delacroix-Rolin said of the French-speaking half of her village: 'We are bilingual, and that is our right. No one held a referendum to ask whether we wanted to be part of Flanders. We just woke up one day [in 1962] and the linguistic frontier had been drawn south of us.'

In the 45 years since, Belgium as a state, steered by the economically and numerically superior Flemish, has effectively devolved itself out of existence. 'Now Flanders with six million people makes the rules and four million French-speakers adapt,' said Delacroix-Rolin, who is banned from speaking French at council meetings or official functions. 'They are very clever. My council does not use language criteria to allocate housing, but the region does. In this way Flanders is ensuring that more Flemish-speakers settle in my municipality. The region also imposes a language test on teachers seeking to work here or parents wishing to adopt children. One way or another, your route is barred unless you have Dutch language diplomas.'

It used to be the opposite. During centuries of Walloon prosperity - including 200 years as Europe's most productive mining and steel basin - the Flemish were looked down on and their language banned. Recently they have gained the economic upper hand, and now see post-industrial Wallonia as a costly passenger. This centuries-old distrust is at the heart of the crisis that has seen the Flemish Christian Democrat, Yves Leterme, fail to form a government since the 10 June elections. The constitution demands a coalition, but French-speaking politicians are refusing to join in his plans to dismantle Belgium. Among Leterme's allies, Flemish nationalist Bart de Wever denies that Wallonia will be cast adrift. 'You can co-operate better as good neighbors than as an unhappily married couple. I'm not a Flemish Milosevic.'

He adds that an independent Flanders would want Brussels as its capital. 'Ten years ago Belgium had its football team, its monarchy, the Belgian franc and Brussels. Now it only has Brussels. For us, it's just the last obstacle.' Increasingly, Flemish politicians speak of the 'Czechoslovakia option' and point to the fact that the 'velvet' break-up in 1993 was a success for both sides. But economically it is hard to imagine what the wastelands of Wallonia would stand to gain. An opinion poll last month found 45 per cent of Flemish people in favor of the disintegration of Belgium against 20 per cent of Walloons.

Most observers believe the break-up is just a matter of time; Flemish nationalist support will grow every time there is a local or national election. But nothing will happen without the EU, to which an independent Flanders, with Brussels as its capital, would have to apply for membership.

To Delacroix-Rolin, the options on the table amount to real threats to her identity and that of her villagers. 'Rhode is like a front line state. We're in a battle for survival.'