Word: wallonia
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...Hoeilaart, at least, there is a sense that Belgium's two principal communities already lead separate lives. "We don't need the French. We could easily live separately," says Jean Paul Goosens, a retired builder. Jean Hennau, a veterinarian, doesn't see them coming together either: "Flanders and Wallonia don't talk to one another...
...There's no Belgian nation. There's no Belgian anything.' FILIP DEWINTER, leader of the far-right Flemish nationalist Vlaams Belang party, on a plan to redivide Belgium into Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia, the two regions that united to form the country in 1830. Polls show as many as 40% of Belgians support the plan...
...past, politicians from both sides of Belgium's language divide have shown a legendary capacity for cobbling together seemingly impossible coalitions. But the will seems to have dried up this year as trust has shattered between Flanders in the north and Wallonia in the south...
...Leterme insisted on a government platform that would wrest more power from the already weak central government and hand it over the increasingly powerful regions. They already control transport, housing, agriculture and education, but Leterme - playing to his base among prosperous Flemings who resent paying taxes to subsidize lagging Wallonia - sought to add taxation, social security, economic policy, immigration and nationality. The Francophones balked, Leterme stepped back from efforts to form government, and Belgian politics are in a curious state of suspension as the country struggles to find an alternative government coalition...
...main rival from Wallonia is Didier Reynders, the head of the liberal Reform Movement (MR), a 48-year-old energetic business-oriented conservative who hopes to catch some of the bounce from Nicolas Sarkozy's recent victory in France. Reynders, who is also Finance Minister, was even in Paris on May 6 to celebrate Sarkozy's triumph...