BELGIUM’S POLITICAL crisis intensified after the hardline Flemish nationalist leader Bart De Wever riled the country’s French speakers by accusing them of blotting out collaboration with the Nazis in the second World War.
More than 100 days after the general election in which he took the spoils, De Wever’s démarche raised further questions over the prospects of a coalition deal between his New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) party and French-speaking Socialists.
“When you’re courting a political partner, you don’t start by saying they stink,” said Richard Miller, an MP with the French-speaking Liberal party.
De Wever stirred wartime grievances in a column for the Dutch-language daily De Standaardin which he said French speakers wilfully nursed "collective ignorance" over Nazi collaboration in their community and kept it "under the rug".
After months of fruitless coalition talks between seven political parties, the intervention met a storm of resistance among French-speaking deputies who accused De Wever of gross irresponsibility.
Some high-level observers believe he is trying to prolong the stalemate to prove his point that the unitary Belgian state is unviable politically. Another interpretation, however, is that he is merely pandering to radicals in his entourage to bolster his position in the event of a powersharing deal.
The article followed an examination on French-language television of De Wever’s past associations with separatist groups more extreme than the N-VA.
It revived acute sensitivities over the German occupation of Belgium and the collaborators who helped the Nazis maintain their grip on the country.
The French speakers of the Wallonia region dominated Belgium’s politics and economy prior to the war and many Dutch speakers in Flanders considered themselves to be underdogs in Belgian society.
The Nazis flattered the Flemings with promises of national emancipation once hostilities finished, encouraging collaborators to step forward. There was collaboration in Wallonia too, but on a smaller scale.
Some 58,000 people were found guilty of collaboration after the war, 32,000 of them Flemish. About 240 collaborators were executed, but most were deprived of many civil rights, meaning they were deprived of the right to work in the public administration.
For decades, such punishments were a source of division between the two communities.
Himself a historian, De Wever wrote that Flanders had faced up to its past but argued research on Walloon collaboration was slight. He also accused Walloons of misplaced moral superiority over the Nazi occupation.
