Word: vre
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...south. Since Belgium seceded from The Netherlands 133 years ago, the numerically superior Flemings have always resented the traditional economic and social superiority of the Walloons. "We're the only country in Europe with an oppressed majority," says Belgium's Flemish Premier Théo Lefèvre...
...vre was overstating the case. Since the end of World War II, Flanders has capitalized on a healthy dollop of U.S. aid to industrialize and acquire a patina of prosperity, while Wallonia, with its played-out coal mines, has been plagued by chronic unemployment. Last year, when violent riots broke out between the two factions, the Flemish majority in Parliament passed a law dividing Belgium into two separate unilingual sections along a line extending from the German border south of Aachen to the French frontier; to the north, Flemish would be the official language in schools, courts and administrative offices...
Architect of peace, and Belgium's new Premier, is Théo Lefèvre, burly, beak-nosed boss of the Social Christians. At 47, Lefèvre belongs to a rising new generation of European leaders, is scarcely known outside his own country. A wartime resistance leader, tough, determined Lefèvre entered Parliament at 32 as a fervent royalist. When his party's old guard acquiesced to the Socialists' demand for Leopold III's abdication, Lefèvre organized a "Young Turks" revolt, and took over the party leadership. The oldtimers growled...
...vre decided that the time had come to end his long feud with the Socialists. "Belgium must end its violent quarreling, its partisan rivalry, its sterile rancors," he told his followers. "A new generation demands a more farseeing attitude...
...even agreed to accept some of the Loi Unique's tougher provisions, such as an increased sales tax. Stickiest question was whether the Social Christians would agree to the release of the hundreds of Socialistled rioters who had been jailed in the January rioting. No, said Lefèvre, but he appointed a Socialist as Minister of Justice so that paroles could be expedited...