Wallonia
Wallonia (
French:
Wallonie,
German:
Wallonien,
Walloon:
Walonreye,
Dutch:
Wallonië) or the
Walloon Region (French:
Région Wallonne, Dutch:
Waals Gewest) is the predominantly
French-speaking region that constitutes one of the three
federal regions of
Belgium, with its capital at
Namur. Its official languages are
French and
German.
The Walloon Region occupies the southern part of Belgium. It has an area of 16844 km² (55.18% of Belgium) and comprises the following
provinces:
*
Hainaut*
Liège*
Luxembourg*
Namur*
Walloon BrabantIts major
cities and
towns include
Liège,
Namur,
Charleroi,
Mons,
Tournai,
Arlon,
Bastogne,
Wavre,
Verviers,
Dinant and
Eupen.
French is the official language in most municipalities.
German (with French
facilities) is the official language in nine eastern municipalities which belonged to
Germany until 1918 and now form the
German-speaking Community of Belgium. Several French-speaking municipalities have
facilities in
Dutch or
German (or both). Wallons have been critised for their poor knowledge of the other major national language
Dutch and the unwillingness of many to learn it, compared to the much better knowledge of
French in
Flanders. In a survey conducted by the
Universite Catholique de Louvain in
Louvain-La-Neuve and published in June 2006, only 19% of Wallonians stated that they were able to speak
Dutch. In contrast, 59% of respondents from Flanders claimed to speak
French.
[*http://regards.ires.ucl.ac.be/Archives/RE042.pdf Report of study by Universite Catholique de Louvain (in French)] ] [ *in Taaluniversum.org summarising report (in Dutch)]The variety of French spoken in Wallonia is
Belgian French, which differs from the standard French of France to various degrees depending on the speaker. The French language used in the administration and in the media is very similar in Belgium and in France. One notable difference is the use of the words
septante (70) and
nonante (90) in Belgium, as opposed to
soixante-dix and
quatre-vingt-dix in France.
In
1990, Belgium also officially recognised
Champenois,
Gaumais,
Picard, and
Walloon as regional languages. Walloon and Picard dialects used to be the predominant languages of the Walloon people until the beginning of the 20th century; French was the language of the upper class. With the development of education in French, these dialects have been in constant regression. There is currently an effort to revive Walloon dialects: some schools offer language courses in Walloon, which is also spoken in some radio programmes, but this effort remains very limited.
Some 70,000 people live in the
German-speaking community of Belgium, which has been presented as the best-protected minority in Europe. Nevertheless, there is a drive in the German-speaking community towards gaining more autonomy from the Walloon Region. The current president of the executive of the German-speaking community,
Karl-Heinz Lambertz, wants his community to obtain regional autonomy, thus cutting it completely off from Wallonia.
The Walloon economy experienced a strong development in the 19th century, essentially in the regions of
Liège and
Charleroi. Belgium was then the first country in continental Europe to undergo an
industrial revolution in the early 1800s, mainly based on
iron and
coal industries. The profitability of these types of heavy industries started declining in the first half of the 20th century, which saw the center of industrial activity shift to the northern part of Belgium. The crisis in the steel industry led to a painful economic restructuration in Wallonia. As of today, Wallonia is still a lot poorer than Flanders. In 2004 the GDP per capita was 27.356 euro in Flanders, and only 19.858 euro in Wallonia.
The current Walloon economy is relatively diversified, although certain areas are still suffering from the steel industry crisis, with a high unemployment rate of up to 20 percent in some regions. The
Ardennes area south of the
Meuse River is a popular tourist destination, with places such as
Bastogne,
Dinant,
Durbuy, and the famous watering place of Spa.
Main article: Politics of Wallonia
Since
23 April 1993, Belgium is a federal state, geographically split into three
Regions and linguistically split into three
Communities. The
Walloon Region is one of the three regions (southern region, mainly French-speaking, with a population of 3,360,000), the two other regions being the
Flemish Region (northern region, mainly Dutch-speaking, with a population of 5,900,000) and the
Brussels-Capital Region (officially bilingual French/Dutch but mainly French-speaking, with a population of 980,000).
The Walloon region has a parliament (one chamber with 75 members elected for five years) and a government responsible in front of the parliament.
The composition of the parliament for the 2004-2009 legislature is as follows:
*
Parti Socialiste (socialist party) : 34
*
Mouvement réformateur (liberal democrats, center right) : 20
*
Centre démocrate humaniste (former Christian party) : 14
*
Front national ("nationalist" party) : 4
*
Ecolo (green party) : 3
The head of the government, called
Ministre-Président, was
Jean-Claude Van Cauwenberghe until 2005, when
Elio Di Rupo took his place.
There are theories about the derivation of the name
'Wallonia'. It may have come from the Gaulish
vellaunos meaning "valorous". Its root
vella gave the Cymric
wallon as in the famous hero's name Caswallon.
It is also one of many
Germanic placenames containing the root
Gal or
Wal which means 'foreigner'.
The term
Walloon' was also used in the late 18th and the 19th century to refer to French-speakers who migrated to the
Netherlands, e.g. 'Walloon parishes' in Dutch province of
Nederlands-Limburg.
Walloon films are often characterized by social realism, likelike those by the
Dardenne brothers or
Benoit Mariage, and thesocial documentaries by
Patric Jean. At the opposite, the sidecompletely shifted of
Thierry Zéno's "Vase de noces" (1974),"Mireille in the life of the others" by
Jean-Marie Buchet (1979), "C'est arrivé près de chez vous" (English title: Man bites dog) by
Rémy Belvaux and
André Bonzel(1992) and of extravagant
Noël Godin and
Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Wallonia doesnot shelter any Anthology Film Archive Museum. No theater projects pointed cinema(experimental cinema, underground, or simplydifferent, unusual test in the content or the form.) There is howeverthe network of the theater known as "Art and essai" but, in practice,they diffuse only cinema subsidized "general public".
*
List of Minister-Presidents of Wallonia*
Walloon Parliament *
Walloon language*
Official gateway to the Walloon Region
