Jules Destrée

Jules Destrée (French: [dɛstʁe];[1] Marcinelle, 21 August 1863 – Brussels, 3 January 1936) was a Walloon lawyer, cultural critic and socialist politician.

He is famous for his quote "Il n'y a pas de Belges" (There are no Belgians), pointing to the lack of patriotic feelings in Flemings and Walloons, while pleading for some kind of federal state.

He wrote many and diverse publications; prose, political and social works, and studies on artists (like Odilon Redon and Rogier van der Weyden).

In November, he gave a talk in front of the association of the young lawyers of Brussels (Jeune Barreau de Bruxelles).

It foresaw a bilingual Flanders and a unilingual Wallonia (this was before Brabant was split and the Brussels-Capital Region was created as a separate entity).

According to Destrée, Belgium was composed of two separate entities, Flanders and Wallonia, and a feeling of Belgian nationalism was not possible, illustrated in his 1906 work "Une idée qui meurt: la patrie" (An idea that is dying: the fatherland).

[6] Contrary to what the title of his letter might suggest, he pleaded not for the separation of Belgium but for some kind of federal state before such a term even existed.

Une Belgique faite de l'union de deux peuples indépendants et libres, accordés précisément à cause de cette indépendance réciproque, ne serait-elle pas un État infiniment plus robuste qu'une Belgique dont la moitié se croirait opprimée par l'autre moitié?A Belgium made of the union of two independent and free peoples, made precisely because of this reciprocal independence, would not that be an infinitely more robust State than a Belgium in which one half would consider itself oppressed by the other half?