“They want Brussels to remain a part of Flanders, there are economic reasons as well of course, but at the same time there is this hate-love relationship,” said Gatz, the liberal Brussels minister.
In 1999, the Flemish government announced it would aim to reach a third of Brussels citizens, far more than the city’s Dutch-speaking population, with its Flemish language services: daycare, libraries, community centers, theaters.
Schools were an area of special emphasis; Brussels had been Frenchified through the education system, and hardcore nationalists saw Dutch schooling as a way to “reconquer” the city for their community.
Educational investment poured in, and the city’s Flemish-language schools earned a reputation for being better than their Francophone peers, attracting both migrants and even children from French-speaking families.
Soccer player Romelu Lukaku became a symbol of that effort. Born to Congolese parents, he was featured in a television documentary called “The School of Lukaku,” about a Dutch-language school in the Brussels neighborhood of Anderlecht.
International city
Just what would happen to Brussels were Belgium to split apart remains a subject of mostly speculative debate. Proposals range from a power-sharing agreement between the Flemish and French-speaking communities, to the creation of an independent EU capital with a status like that of Washington, D.C., to the city’s absorption into one of the two larger regions.