Is Brussels a French-speaking city?

85% to 90% of the people in Brussels are French-speaking, according to French-speaking politicians and Wikipedia. But is it true? Not so, says Freddy Neyts, a Dutch-speaking citizen from Brussels and husband of former minister Annemie Neyts. He did some calculations based on census data from the Belgian Directorate-General of Statistics (Statbel) and presented them last Tuesday at a debate in Brussels. The result: during the day 44% of the people in Brussels are French-speakers. At night, when commuters and tourists have left, this mounts to 48%. The numbers are summarized in the following table:



Freddy Neyts
Freddy Neyts
And Mr Neyts concludes: "Every day, 400,000 Dutch-speakers and 430,000 people whose mother tongue is not French or Dutch are staying in Brussels. And 650,000 French-speakers, which is a relative majority but not an absolute majority. At night, people sleep, and there is not much need for multilingual services. But during the day and in the evening, it is all but normal that the Brussels Capital Region is bilingual (French/Dutch) for government services, health services, institutions and companies. Preferably multilingual, out of respect and politeness for immigrants and foreign visitors. Which city or region in the democratic world does not function this way? Only in Brussels it is possible that an arrogant French-speaking class imposes its language upon the population and the visitors, and constantly tries to humiliate people who do not speak French."



Reacties

#101479

gfqsd

 

Brussels has been french-speaking only for about 50-60 years, because of immigration and repression of dutch speakers (anyone who was pro-flanders and pro-dutch was accused of collaboration with the Germans).
Before the Repression, the majority of the middle and labor classes spoke dutch at home.

#119430

Anonymous

 

Not Dutch, Flemish or rather Brussels Flemish.

#119431

Marc Huybrechts

 

There are two possible or plausible major explanations for the silly behavior of another courageous 'Anonymous'.

Either he is a snob, who wants to belittle and/or demonise the 'other side'. Most likely he is a Francophone or at least a Francophile, but not necessarily so for he might well be a certain type of Dutch citizen.

Or, he must be ignorant, of both the Dutch language and of the history of Brussels. Perhaps he thinks that Australians, Texans, and Jamaicans do not speak English, or that Québécois do not speak French. But, commenting on matters one does not understand is generally not wise.

It is also possible of course that his ignorance is dominated by his intolerance for dialects in any language. Perhaps he is a patrician who considers himself 'above' all that.

No wonder he dare not put his name under his silly oneliner.

#101327

traveller

 

@ Central Scrutinizer of the Cro-Magnon kind

Luc has actually answered you in his own dry exact way.
As usual you have no real arguments except generalities and presently we are lucky here that you are keeping it clean and proper.
You are missing your normal claque here which is the reason I am not going to hammer you more than Luc already did.

#101321

LVB

 

@Mr. Scrutinizer: This article dates from December 2007, i.e. long before the electoral victory of the NVA and long before Els Ampe's criticism of Jan Peumans.

I understand that Mr. Neyts has used statistics about the mother tongue of the people staying in Brussels. This doesn't mean that those 150.000 can't speak a mouthful of French, just as most of the 120.000 native Dutch-speakers in Brussels have a reasonable knowledge of French.

Mr. Neyts just proves - using official StatBel data - that French is not the mother tongue of a majority of Brussels inhabitants.

And please call our language 'Dutch', not 'Flemish'.

#101260

The Central Scrutinizer

 

So Freddy Neyts, ex-"journalist" from Het Laatste Nieuws (!), has decided on his own that amongst 200 000 Belgians of foreign origins living in Brussels, 150 000 don’t speak neither French, neither Flemish. Or, especially and certainly NOT FRENCH, as we can imagine ! These 150 000 inhabitants don’t have contacts with any public administration at all, nor with any electricity, gas or water companies, they do their shopping in little special shops, or usually hire translaters in those mentionned actions. Yeah, right.

So do 150 000 French-speaking inhabitants of the Brussels region suddenly vanish from the stats ! Cool.

Did Freddy Neyts ever set a foot on a sidewalk in Molenbeek, Schaerbeek or Saint-Gilles ? We doubt it. He’s probably too busy in his flat writing his little flamingant-propaganda in order to cheer up the flamingants who would get disinterested in his party, Open VLD, because of his partymate Els Ampe who criticized the NVA.

Of course, every flemish party has now little employees in charge of sticking closely to the hate-and-lies propaganda of the NVA, pubs politics are quite popular now in flemish Belgium. Freddy is one of them and he’s quite good at it, apparently !

And it’s not finished yet, here comes Freddy with another trick, juggling with the workers who daily come in and out of Brussels, and in a last effort, he totally convince us that at night, round 4 AM, Brussels is 100 % Dutch-speaking, because everybody’s sleeping and Freddy’s alone speaking out load Flemish in his living-room.

Unfortunately, he may « keren en draaien » whatever he wants and « zich in alle bochten wringen », play funny mathematics for fools, wave with his fantasms, sing a song, climb a tree, there are FACTS.

For instance the last results of the elections in the 19 entities of the Brussels Region.

http://www.bruxelleselectio...

If we only take the commune of our new friend, Brussels-city, we find 85 % votes for French-speaking political parties. In some communes, the Flemish votes don’t even reach 5 %...

Better luck next time, Freddy !

#94335

Cogito

 

Flemish-dutch and Hollandish-dutch are both Dutch and relate to each other like British English and American English.

#94023

Quentin

 

Is dutch different from flemish? I don't get it. I've been to Brussels, no doubt the inhabitants speak french.

#69343

Unfrench Frenchman

 

Brussels speaks Bureaucratese, Moroccan Arabic, Dutch, English and various pidgins that pass for French. I am a native speaker of French and I can tell you people that what is spoken in Brussels is not real French. Case closed.

#67093

David S

 

It's amazing how politicians can sell horsesh-t to a horse. I lived for 30 years in Brussels before relocating to the US in the fall of 2005. I confirm that Brussels is a French-speaking city. 90% seems to be absolutely correct. And I was an English and Dutch high school teacher for 7 years, taught in 10 different schools in the public school system of Brussels, so I know the question very well. I wish more than 10% of the kids I taught could ANY speak Dutch (it would have made my job easier), but the reality was that very few people in Brussels have Dutch as their mother tongue.

#67074

New Statesman

 

@GeckoArt
Dutch speaking people from Antwerpen or Hasselt don't even seem to understand each other...

Stupid lies from a certified troll.
Do you even live here? It seems you are in some kind of parallel universe.

#66118

GeckoArt

 

1) What's the point with commuters? Who cares about them? These people are not the inhabitants of Brussels and they do not pay taxes in Brussels ! The people paying (expensive) taxes because they live in the 19 communes of Brussels should be the only ones accounting as "bruxellois" and I'm pretty sure the vast majority of them speaks french. Commuters shouldn't have anything to say about Brussels, they just take advantage of the city without any contribution to it's maintenance.

2) Me Neyt should really consider the suburbs where arrogant and frustrated dutch speaking people do everything in their power to piss off the french speaking population.

3) Is it the french speaking people's fault if very little people on this planet want to speak dutch? It's not even a unified language! Dutch speaking people from Antwerpen or Hasselt don't even seem to understand each other... What's the point of this language in a context of global internationalisation ?

4) We are not going to remain passive in this. If the dutch speaking people of Belgium want separation, then the only right and democratic thing to do is a referendum in which the INHABITANTS of each commune of Belgium declares their language of choice... If the majority of the inhabitants of a commune declare they are french speaking, then that commune should be considered as such. If the majority of the inhabitants declare they are dutch speaking, then that commune should be considered as such.

I'm all in favor of a separation (Since my birth, for 35 years, I've been hearing about it and am growing tired of all the energy wasted in stupid talks !). If it has to be done, let's do it and stop wasting so much time, money and efforts. Let's have a referendum and let the people choose! That's the only democratic way of doing things.

#65958

Allen

 

Brussels is a French-speaking city. The fact is that the Dutch-speaking are feeling lonely in Brussels and try to dissolve the reality ... That's exactly what is TRYING to do Freddy Neyts ...

#65228

imran

 

please do not forget Montreal in Canada. we the same problem.

#64848

traveller

 

@ capitale,

What f.....g suburb? Those villages are independent villages and NOT "le très grand Bruxelles".
They were nice peaceful villages until your "Herrenvolk" came living there, now they are fighting for their independence from that cesspool you call "la capitale", yes "capitale de la merde" is more like it.

#64778

dendof

 

Man, zeik toch niet en leer Nederlands als je in Vlaanderen komt wonen.

Anders bol je het maar terug af over de taalgrens.

#64536

capitale

 

where is democracy when the french speaking majority in the brussel's suburb is humiliated and can't speak and use french with administration etc?

Signs in french in the suburb are not allowed!

#62251

Baudouin Petit

 

Mr Neyts opinion is quite interesting. Let's adapt it to the situation in the Brussels suburbs.

To quote Mr Neyts "...it is all but normal that the Brussels Capital Region is bilingual (French/Dutch) for government services, health services, institutions and companies. Preferably multilingual, out of respect and politeness for immigrants and foreign visitors. Which city or region in the democratic world does not function this way? Only in Brussels it is possible that an arrogant French-speaking class imposes its language upon the population and the visitors, and constantly tries to humiliate people who do not speak French."

In the Brussels suburbs this statement can be adapted as follows :

"it is all but normal that the Brussels capital region, including its suburbs, be bilingual (French/Dutch) for government services, health services, institutions and companies. Preferably multilingual, out of respect and politeness for immigrants and foreign visitors. Which city or region in the democratic world does not function this way? Only in the Brussels suburbs it is possible that an arrogant Dutch-speaking class imposes its language upon the population and the visitors, and constantly tries to humiliate people who do not speak Dutch"

#56418

espagnol

 

¡Viva Bélgica Una, Grande y Libre!

#56124

traveller

 

@ Pipermaru

And 60% of those 80% speak french in arabic.

#56120

Pipermaru

 

Brussels has a lot of Dutch people during the working hours....but in the evening the city in 80% french speaking....

#56104

Leo Norekens

 

@Johan: In Dutch yes, but not in English.
(All but = nearly, almost, practically -- vrijwel, nagenoeg.... Not to be confused with "anything but", meaning "allesbehalve")..

#56084

Johan Akkermans

 

"...it is all but normal...", the article says. Shouldn't that have been "...it's only normal..."? The way it is said now, it conveys exactly the opposite of what is meant.

#56061

Marco

 

@Melodius: I guess that you are right if you also count all the flemmings who can speak French ( or need to, to communicate with native French speakers ). The truth is that the native French speaking residents of Brussels NEED to count the immigrants from North Africa as being 'native' French speakers to 'justify' their claim that Brussels is a unilingual French-speaking city.

#56060

melodius

 

Well that means that only 10% of the Belgian population are Dutch-speakers and 90% French-speakers. Moreover, cities do not belong to languages but to people. And they chose French rather than Dutch.

Case closed. You can go fight you "ethnic conflict" elsewhere.

#55951

Briggs

 

In an ethnic conflict foreigners have no presence. This is a struggle between two 'indigenous' communities. But then again Brussels is historically 'Dutch speaking'...so French speakers wouldn't be indigenous :) (hows that for a provocation!)

#55761

melodius

 

These numbers do not make any sense at all. "Lies, damn lies, and the creative use of statistics." The truth is that almost all the people described as "other" use French as their lingua franca and almost none of them Dutch.

#55760

Questing Beast

 

"Which city or region in the democratic world does not function this way?" Good question, but let's face the truth: despite the fact that Brussels houses the EU, it remains what it always has been: a small provincial town in a small (and what's more important) insignificant country that has made mediocrity its trademark. This is not a city with a worldwide appeal. Huffin' and puffin' like a frog trying to be an ox, yes, but virtually ignored by the rest of the world.

#55532

bert

 

If the 85% to 90% covers people who _can_ speak French, rather than the 44% to 48% that _prefer_ to speak French, then these numbers might make sense. Where is the 'multilingual' column?