The Walloon Movement (French: Mouvement wallon) is an umbrella term for all Belgium political movements that either assert the existence of a Walloon identity and of Wallonia and/or defend French culture and language within Belgium, either within the framework of the 1830 Deal or either defending the linguistic rights of French-speakers.
Wallonia asserted timidly since 1898 but which becomes the principal claim since 1905 with a climax at the Walloon congress of 1912 and Jules Destrée's Letter to the King.
This world war radicalised even more the movement which for the first time speaks about independence ideas, and which will lead to its active participation in the Royal Question in 1950.
According to Georges Dotreppe, a member of the directory of "Wallonie Libre", the Benelux concept, created on English soil and orientated towards Great Britain and the United States, supports an Anglo-Saxon anti-French policy which in no way embraces the interest of Wallonia, a sister community of France.
", published in 1903, denounces the subjection of the Walloons to the Flemings, who are merely the successors of the previous Dutch, Austrians and Spanish occupiers of Wallonia.
Started in liberal left societies, it quickly became a rallying cry for a liberal-socialist coalition against the conservatives of the Catholic Party whose power base was in the Flemish-speaking provinces.
[clarification needed] The defence of French as Belgium's sole official language was a historical campaign of the Walloon Movement.
This idea quickly began to disappear after 1898, the year in which the Coremans-De Vriendt law was enacted and Dutch was recognized as an official language of Belgium.
At the elections of 1965, a party called Democratic Front of Francophones of Brussels (FDBF, now FDF) arose and had three deputies and one senator.
This propaganda paper of the Walloon League of Liège published on first page a plea in favour of the administrative separation of the country: "Let us take the offensive openly and continue as of today the obtention of a separatist regime, before they strip us and reduce more still".
The independence manifesto was written in November 1943, after the departure of the federalists, in the form of a draft Constitution for a Walloon republic.
During the general strike of 1960–1961 Renardism appeared, an independentist trend for a socialist and syndical Wallonia, but its failure after this strike forces this syndical enterprise to be folded back on the constitution of a federalistic lobbying group, the Walloon Popular Movement (Mouvement Populaire Wallon – MPW).
During the 1970s and '80s, several parties with an independentist programme were created, such as the Walloon Popular Rally (Rassemblement populaire wallon – RPW) and the Front for the Independence of Wallonia [fr] (Front pour l'Indépendance de la Wallonie – FIW) but after electoral failures, especially the European elections on 17 June 1984, they sank into oblivion.
It is the Rattachist trend that today gathers the most enthusiasm of Walloon militants unhappy with the result of institutional reforms in favour of the autonomy of Wallonia within Belgium.
Rattachisme (literally "re-attachment-ism") has historically been a sub-group within the Walloon Movement which advocates the secession of Wallonia and its merger into France.