Francization of Brussels

The Francization of Brussels refers to the evolution, over the past two centuries,[1][2] of this historically Dutch-speaking city[1][3][4] into one where French has become the majority language and lingua franca.

[1][9] The rise of French in public life gradually began by the end of the 18th century,[10][11] quickly accelerating as the new capital saw a major increase in population following Belgian independence.

[12][13][14][15] Dutch – of which standardization in Belgium was still very weak[16][17][15] — could not compete with French, which was the exclusive language of the judiciary, the administration, the army, education, high culture and the media.

[13] Although the majority of the population remained bilingual until the second half of the 20th century,[13][6] the original Brabantian dialect[26] was often no longer passed on from one generation to another,[27] leading to an increase of monolingual French-speakers from 1910 onwards.

[30][34] This phenomenon of expanding Francization (dubbed the "oil slick" by its opponents),[6][35][13] remains, together with the future of Brussels,[36] one of the most controversial topics in Belgian politics and public discourse.

Through the marriage of his daughter Mary of Burgundy (who was born in Brussels) to Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, the Low Countries fell under Habsburg sovereignty.

The Habsburgs' repressive policies after the division of the Low Countries and the following exodus of the intellectual elite towards the Dutch Republic left Flanders bereft of its social upper class.

Twenty years later this rose to a quarter; however, over half of the official documents in French originated in the French-speaking bourgeoisie, who made up just a tenth of the population.

[46][53] The French occupation laid the foundations for a Francization of the Flemish middle class aided by an exceptional French-language educational system.

The Francization of the Dutch-speaking parts of the Low Countries, therefore, remained limited to the higher levels of the local administration and upper-class society.

[40] In addition, the law stated that all court pleas, sentences, and other legal materials were to be written solely in French unless practical considerations made this impossible.

[47] The king hoped to make Dutch the sole language of the nation, but the French-speaking citizenry, the Catholic Church, and the Walloons resisted this move.

The proof that they actually do speak good Flemish is that they bark orders to their servants in Flemish.The new Belgian capital remained a mostly Dutch-speaking city, where the inhabitants spoke a local South Brabantian dialect.

[66] In 1860, 95% of the Flemish population spoke Dutch, although these people had hardly any economic and political power[67] and deemed a good knowledge of French necessary to attain higher social status and wealth.

[68] The proposal by Buls was initially poorly received by the local councils, although they were later accepted when studies showed that when students had acquired a good understanding of Dutch, they more easily obtained French speaking skills.

[46][60] This was made possible by the idea of "freedom of the head of household", which stipulated that parents were allowed to send their children to any school they wished, regardless of the child's mother tongue.

In the first decade after the independence of Belgium, the neglect of the Dutch language and culture gradually caused increasingly greater dissatisfaction in the Flemish community.

This proposal was rejected by French speakers,[41] who feared a "Flemishization" of Wallonia as well as the prospect of having to learn Dutch to obtain a job in the civil service.

[71] Beyond the city of Brussels, the municipalities of Ixelles, Saint-Gilles, Etterbeek, Forest, Watermael-Boitsfort and Saint-Josse saw the most widespread adoption of the French language over the following century.

[75] After the language census of 1947, Evere, Ganshoren, and Sint-Agatha-Berchem were added to the bilingual agglomeration, although the implementation of this change was postponed until 1954 due to Flemish pressure.

In 1976, this task was taken up by the precursor to today's Flemish Community Commission (VGC),[89] which made substantial investments to improve the quality of Dutch language schools.

[91] Even today, the Flemish educational system continues to attract those with a first language other than Dutch; in 2005, 20% of students go to Dutch-speaking high schools, and for daycares, that figure reaches 23%.

[87] In fact, it has got to the point where those with Dutch as a first language are now a minority in the Flemish schools, and as a result, measures have needed to be taken to sustain the quality of education.

[31] Bilingualism is increasingly a prerequisite for well-paying jobs,[45] and what prestige the Dutch language currently has in Brussels is chiefly for economic reasons.

[64] In 1958, Brussels became the seat of the European Economic Community, which later became the EU, while the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was resettled in Belgium in 1967 with its headquarters in Evere.

[64] This evolution is also seen with Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian migrants, who easily adopted French due to its similarity to other Romance languages that many already spoke.

[98][99] Initially, Flemish political parties demanded Flanders be given jurisdiction over cultural matters, concerned with the dominance of the French language in the federal government.

[100] In Drogenbos, Kraainem, Linkebeek, Sint-Genesius-Rode, Wemmel and Wezembeek-Oppem, the six municipalities with language facilities in the suburbs around Brussels, the proportion of the population that was French-speaking also grew in the second half of the 20th century, and they now constitute a majority.

[110] For elections to the Belgian Senate and to the European Parliament, which are organized by linguistic region, residents from anywhere in the arrondissement can vote for French-speaking parties in Wallonia and Brussels.

It was feared that, if BHV was divided, the Francophones living in Halle-Vilvoorde would no longer be able to vote for candidates in Brussels, and they would lose the right to judicial proceedings in French.