Belgium is an odd country. In a sense, it is half France, half Netherlands. Because some 60% of Belgians speak Dutch, and a little under 40% speak French. Then there’s a tiny minority that speaks German.
The Belgian King, Philippe, hardly speaks a lick of Dutch and has a very heavy accent — his French, however, is fluent, as it is his first language.
I cannot imagine having a head of state in a country who barely speaks the same language as the majority of his subjects. Kind of weird.
If you look at the Belgian map, you’ll spot two different distinct areas — the Dutch speaking north, called Flanders. And the French speaking south, called Wallonia. Belgian indepence wasn’t recognized until 1830, it belonged to the Netherlands before.
There’s also a small enclave in Wallonia that is more oriented towards Germany, which is why the total amount of French speakers is somewhat below 40% while the French speaking part is a little larger than the Dutch part — it is less heavily populated, however, and has some pretty swell nature.
I’m not going to agree with Nigel Farage, however, as agreeing with Nigel Farage is akin to deliberately making myself puke and reveling in the flavor of my own sickness. I will say this — if Emmanuel Macron and whoever is in charge of the Netherlands right now were barbarians of the level of Putin, they’d each have annexed half of Belgium by now. Thankfully, Western Europe is pretty chill when it comes to these things and doesn’t take policy advice from Farage.
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