The Political Expression of Flemish Nationalism

When the Kingdom of Belgium was founded in 1830, its leaders made no secret of the desire to create a monolingual, French-speaking state. It took the Flemish Movement more than a century to change the Kingdom. But the founding of the first autonomous Flemish nationalist political party is inextricably linked to the First World War. In this article you can follow the rise and fall of those nationalist parties, ending for the time being with the NVA (New Flemish Alliance), becoming the largest Flemish (and Belgian) party in 2010. The party stayed out of the new Belgian “federal” government, but from the Flemish government, to which they do belong, they can make things pretty difficult for that Belgian government. The country will undergo new and profound changes but already there is talk of a new round of state reform.