Compositions et décompositions identitaires : la Belgique

The political evolution of Belgium is that of a state born in the heart of northwestern Europe in the 19th century. At one time the leader in the industrial revolution on the European continent, Belgium was a constitutional model for bourgeois parliamentary government, which contributed to the building of a Belgian national identity. This identity was in turn based on an ad-hoc historiography, which was subsequently and increasingly challenged as a result of the 20th century transformations of the economic space. The shift of economic expansion from Wallonia to Flanders reinforced the strength of the Flemish nationalist movement, whose roots were latent in Flanders’s rural, catholic and impoverished past, and which were supported by the Flemings’ linguistic identity.The challenge to the legitimacy of the Belgian nationality gained momentum over the following decades, leading to the transformation of Belgium into a federal state. This could very well prove to have been a step towards a loose confederation, if not the dissolution of Belgium into a Europe of regions. This very complicated federalisation of the state operates according to two different decision-making logics. On the Flemish side there is a fusion of territorial and personal functions. In the Walloon region the distinction between territorial and personal functions is preserved. Brussels, which is at the heart of the competition between the two communities, has the most complicated status