Saint Verhaegen (French: Saint-Verhaegen; Dutch: Sint-Verhaegen), commonly shortened to St V, is a holiday for freethinking university students in Brussels, Belgium.

The festivities started in 1888 as a protest against the then-academic authorities and has since grown into an annual parade that pays tribute to Verhaegen and the values of free inquiry [fr; nl].

[5] A large part of the students, however, ignored that ban and proceeded to occupy the traditional starting point of the Square du Grand Sablon only to later continue with the procession on foot.

[6] The following year, the city council forbade the use of the transport trucks and limited the consumption of alcohol to the start- and end-points; the students responded by throwing flour at each other and passers-bys.

The origins of the flour-throwing dates back to a past tradition of the holiday where the students used to throw eggs, flour and water at the local catholic bourgeoisie who lived in and near the Square du Grand Sablon, after they had repeatedly pleaded with to city council to try and stop the event from happening because they disapproved of the students using the square as their starting point.

However, political themes are not shunned either, with students often using Saint Verhaegen to raise awareness on social problems, ideological issues and humanitarian crises.

Fascism, the School Struggle, state reforms, community fault lines, language politics, abortion, apartheid, human rights, freedom of speech, nationalism, migration, terrorism, climate change, poverty, the far-right, etc., among others, have already formed the theme of the celebration.