Victor Auguste de Laveleye (6 November 1894 – 14 December 1945) was a Belgian liberal politician and minister.

During World War II he was newsreader for Radio Belgique, a BBC station transmitted to occupied Belgium.

He became a member of parliament, chairman of the Liberal Party (1936–1937) and for a few months Minister of Justice in Paul Van Zeeland's second government (1937).

Winston Churchill adopted the sign soon afterwards, though he sometimes got it the wrong way around by displaying the back of his hand, a gesture that is widely used in Great Britain as a lewd and vulgar insult (it means "fuck off").

[4] After the liberation Victor de Laveleye became Minister of Public Education in the governments Pierlot V and VI, who did not last for five months (September 1944 – February 1945).