Voeren (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈvuːrə(n)] ⓘ; French: Fourons [fuʁɔ̃]) is a Flemish Dutch-speaking municipality with facilities for the French-speaking minority, located in the Belgian province of Limburg.

Voeren's name is derived from that of a small right-bank tributary of the Meuse, the Voer, which flows through the municipality.

Both of these duchies were part of the Holy Roman Empire but they developed a relatively independent regime ruled by powerful dynasties.

The same Germanic dialect is also spoken in the neighbouring Walloon municipalities of Blieberg, Welkenraedt and Baelen and has been recognised by the French Community of Belgium as a regional language since 1990.

The results of the next census, held in 1947, were only made public in 1954 and gave a totally different outcome, with only 42.9% stating that they spoke Dutch and 57.1% French.

This committee proposed, notwithstanding the 1947 results (strongly disputed by the Flemish and recognised by the Belgian parliament as useless for determining the language border since the consultation was found to be rigged by nationalist francophones which is why the 1947 results were published in 1954[6]), that the six villages were Dutch speaking with special regulations for the French-speaking minority to be decided after discussion with the town councils.

This amendment was introduced by the Walloon socialist politician and former mayor of Liège, Paul Gruselin, who wanted to transfer the Flemish towns with a Francophone majority Comines-Warneton and Mouscron to the Walloon province of Hainaut and offered to transfer the Voer region to the Dutch-speaking province of Limburg as compensation.

[8][9][10][11] In order to understand this proposal of the Walloon socialists of Liège and Mouscron, one must take into account the fact that almost everyone at the time considered that a Dutch dialect was spoken in the Voer Region and that, consequently, their inhabitants would willingly accept this change.

Similarly in Comines-Warneton and Mouscron, the city councils[13] and a large majority of the population wanted to remain part of the Dutch-speaking province of West Flanders[14] or at the very least become a new francophone province together with the city of Tournai, the Tournaisis because they identified as Frenchified Flemings, having shared a history with the other regions of the former County of Flanders and felt culturally closer to French Flanders than to the Hainaut Province.

There were also action committees on both sides and gangs who daubed place-name signs and took part in violent demonstrations.

This factor was decisive in the 2000 municipal elections, because of the significant number of Dutch citizens living in Voeren (about 20% of the total population): Voerbelangen won a majority of 53% of the votes and 8 out of 15 local council seats.

However, the new majority faced budgetary difficulties, since large debts had been incurred by the previous administration.

The council had to sell several items of municipal property, such as forests and goods[clarification needed] to stabilise its finances.