Quote Originally Posted by TA
French sentiments towards Belgium in general and Walonia in particular). Still, I very much doubt that France would actually want to adopt Walonia if Belgium were to be split.
If Belgium were to split up, Flanders would become independent and Wallonia would be occupied immediately...erm...be intimidated into joining...erm...join of its own free accord...erm... would be liberated into France.

France would not pass up the opportunity to get a bit bigger. France has a will to power. Plus it helps to even out the balance with Germany.

Brussels is the great big problem. It is what keeps Belgium together. The only solution I see is to give Brussels some sort of special status, a free city, or a 'Brussels DC' - a European district. Other than that, Belgium will have to stay intact unless either side is willing to give up Brussels.


Wallonia isn't all that scared to see Flanders go. It will immediately join an even bigger source of subsidies, the limitless funds of the French state, with equally generous social provisions. Wallonia is far less depenedent on Flanders in this respect than is sometimes assumed.
The thing is that there is not really such thing as a Walloon nation. The project of Flanders is Flanders, the project of Wallonia has always been Belgium. There is no Wallonia outside of the existence of Belgium. And - this has ired the Flemings those past two centuries - it is even dificult to conceive of a Belgium outside of Wallonia. Belgium started out as a francophone nation, with some local minority languages, Latin in the south and the even smaller Germanic ones in the north. The francophones have made Belgium, made it independent, had the continent's first industrialisation, made Belgium fabulously wealthy, gave it an identity. It did not occur to the Walloons that those handful of rural peasants with their incomprehensible tongues would one day turn their minority a vast majority, would then agitate against Belgium. Call it the revenge of the priests over the liberals and socialists: the Walloons may have driven God out of the heads of urbanised Belgium, but the priests controlled the wombs of the peasantry.

Wallonia has never gotten over this shock, moreso because it roughly coincided with de-industrialisation and massive immigration. Wallonia has a cultural identity problem.

Their is an upside to that. It is impossible for Flanders to join the Netherlands - Flemish identity is Flemish, the project of Flemish nationalism has been Flanders. Whereas Wallonia can easily join France. The identity of Wallonia is mostly just that of 'francophone part of a larger state'. Walloon nationalism is very crudely developed. A Walloon is always 'a Belgian', whereas a Fleming is always 'a Fleming'. Oddly, the majority population (Flanders) still behaves in the manner of a minority, has retained the reflexes of a threatened minority part. For example, in Spain the Catalan (minority) will always say he is 'a Catalan', whereas a Castillian (majority) will always say he is 'Spanish'.