Is Brussels a French-speaking city?

@ 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.

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 !

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

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.

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.

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

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

Anders bol je het maar terug af over de taalgrens.

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"

@ Pipermaru

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

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

@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.

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!)

"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.