French Community of Belgium

This article is about Francophone Belgians. For matters relating to Franco-Belgian ties, see Belgium–France relations.

French Community of Belgium Communauté française (French)
Community of Belgium
Flag
Country	Belgium
Established	1980
Capital	Brussels
Government
• Executive	Government of the French Community
• Governing parties (2014–2019)	PS, cdH
• Minister-President	Rudy Demotte (PS)
• Legislature	Parliament of the French Community
• Speaker	fr (PS)
Celebration Day	27 September
Language	French
Website	www.cfwb.be
The Walloon flag was chosen as flag of the French Community of Belgium in 1975. It was adopted by the Walloon Region in 1998.

In Belgium, the French Community (French: Communauté française), also controversially called the Wallonia-Brussels Federation (French: Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles), refers to one of the three constituent constitutional linguistic communities. This ambiguous term refers to Francophone Belgians, and not to Frenchmen residing in Belgium. As such, the French Community of Belgium is sometimes rendered in English as "the French-speaking Community of Belgium" for clarity.

The Community has its own parliament, government, and administration. Its official flag is identical to the Walloon Flag, which is also the official flag of the Walloons of Wallonia.

Wallonia is home to 80% of all Francophone Belgians, with the remaining 20% residing in Brussels, which is the seat of parliament of the French Community.

Historically, this community spoke variants of Walloon, Flemish, Picard, Luxembourgish or Moselle Franconian German, but nowadays, the dominant language is overwhelmingly Belgian French, except for some areas alongside the border to the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg (mainly the district called Land of Arlon or Arelerland), where Luxembourgish is still widely spoken.

Description

The French Community of Belgium includes 4.5 million people, of whom:

• 3.6 million live in the Walloon Region (that is almost the entirety of the inhabitants of this region, apart from people who live in the German-speaking communes, who number around 70,000);
• 900,000 living in the Brussels-Capital Region (out of 1.1 million inhabitants).

French speakers who live in the Flemish Region are not included in the official numbers for the French-speaking Community, since the French Community has no jurisdiction in that region. Their number is unknown, given the absence of sub-nationality status and the discouragement of linguistic criteria in census-taking. Estimates of the French-speaking population of Flanders vary from 120,000, around 200,000, to around 300,000.

The French Community of Belgium makes up about 41% of the total population of Belgium; 58% of the population belongs to the Flemish Community, and 1% to the German-speaking Community.

Alternative name

For years there have been hints that the Community wanted to better demonstrate the link between Wallonia and Brussels, the two main territories where the French speakers are in the majority. These include the creation of several organisations such as Wallonie-Bruxelles International, a public body in charge of international cultural affairs set up jointly by the French Community, the Walloon Region and the Commission communautaire française (COCOF, a French-speaking institution of the Brussels-Capital Region). The concept of "Wallonie-Bruxelles" is however not mentioned in the Belgian constitution, and appeared only in a few official legal texts, such as the "Arrêté du Gouvernement de la Communauté française fixant le code de qualité et de l'accueil" of 17 December 2003, mentioning the name "Communauté Wallonie-Bruxelles", and the "Arrêté du Gouvernement de la Communauté française approuvant le programme quinquennal de promotion de la santé 2004–2008" of 30 April 2004, mentioning the name "Communauté française Wallonie-Bruxelles".

In May 2011, the parliament of the Community voted a resolution according to which it would, from then on, use the name "Wallonia-Brussels Federation" (French: "Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles") for all its communications, campaigns and in the administration. The move was immediately interpreted as aggressive by the Flemish authorities, the Minister-President of Flanders announcing he would not recognize the federation as an official body and saying that documents that would be sent by the federation would be unconstitutional and therefore would not exist.

While the authorities of the Community acknowledge the fact that the new name is not mentioned in the Belgian Constitution, they insist that their move is not illegal, as long as the new name is used as an additional name for the Community and is not used when it could create a legal issue (such as with the official texts published in the Belgian Official Journal).

Although the then Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme said that the federal government would not use the new name and the Flemish VRT decided not to use the new name in its news programs either, it is used by the French-speaking media, including the RTBF public network, which is fully controlled by the Community. The independent/private media uses both the alternative and the original designation.

In September 2011, the Community adopted a new logo that incorporates its new name.

Comparison with 'Flanders'

'Flanders' is a term which can refer to two different but related political institutions and concepts, the Flemish Region and the Flemish Community. However in both cases the term "Flanders" might be used instead (it is more widely used in official publications as well as informally). This is because the Flemish Region has merged its institutions with the Community, and there is only a small portion of the Dutch-speakers in Brussels, and they identify as Flemish. On the other hand, the Walloon Region and the French Community of Belgium remain separate and as such, the two are not interchangeable, especially since a significant portion of the French Community is found outside Wallonia, namely in the Brussels Region, and Brussels francophones further do not identify as Walloon.

Politics and government

See also: Parliament of the French Community and Government of the French Community

The French Community of Belgium is governed by the Parliament of the French Community, which selects the executive branch, the Government of the French Community.

Parliament

The Parliament of the French Community (French: Parlement de la Communauté française or PCF) is the legislative assembly of the French Community of Belgium based in the Quartier Royal. It consists of all 75 members of the Walloon Parliament except German-speaking members (currently two) who are substituted by French-speaking members from the same party, and 19 members elected by the French linguistic group of the Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region within the former body. These members are elected for a term of five years.

The current President of the Parliament of the French Community is fr (PS).

Current composition (2014–2019)

See also: List of members of the Parliament of the French Community

Affiliation		Members
•	Socialist Party (PS)	36
	Reformist Movement (MR)	30
•	Humanist Democratic Centre (cdH)	16
	Ecolo	6
	Francophone Democratic Federalists (FDF)	3
	Workers' Party of Belgium (PTB-GO!)	2
	People's Party (PP)	1
Total		94

Note: Government coalition parties are denoted with bullets (•)

Executive

The Cabinet of the French Community of Belgium (French: Gouvernement de la Communauté française ) is the executive branch of the French Community, and it too sits in Brussels. It consists of a number of ministers chosen by the parliament and is headed by a Minister-President.

Following the 25 May 2014 election, the     PS (30 seats) and     CDH (13 seats) parties formed a coalition.

Government of the French Community - Demotte III
	Party	Name	Function
	PS	Rudy Demotte	Minister President
	PS	André Flahaut	Minister of Budget
	PS	Isabelle Simonis	Minister of Youth and Equal Rights
	PS	Rachid Madrane	Minister of Youth Aid, Justice and Brussels
	PS	Jean-Claude Marcourt	Minister of Higher Education, Scientific Policy and Media
	CDH	Joëlle Milquet (until April 2016)	Minister of Compulsory Education, Culture and Child Care
	CDH	Marie-Martine Schyns (from April 2016)	Minister of Compulsory Education and School Buildings
	CDH	Alda Greoli (from April 2016)	Minister of Culture, Child Care and Sports
	CDH	René Collin	Minister of Agriculture and Tourism (Minister of Sports until April 2016)

• On 11 April 2016, Joëlle Milquet resigned as Minister of Compulsory Education, Culture and Child Care as she was accused of creating a conflict of interest in using her ministerial assistants to help her with a new election campaign in 2014. A few days later, Milquet was replaced by Marie-Martine Schyns and Alda Greoli. Schyns took over the Compulsory Education portfolio, which she was already in charge of during the previous legislature. Greoli took over Culture and Child Care from Milquet and also received the Sports portfolio from René Collin, who shifted to Agriculture and Tourism.

List of Ministers-President of the French Community

Philippe Moureaux (1st time)	22 December 1981 – 9 December 1985	PS
Philippe Monfils	9 December 1985 – 2 February 1988	PRL
Philippe Moureaux (2nd time)	2 February – 9 May 1988	PS
Valmy Féaux	17 May 1988 – 7 January 1992	PS
Bernard Anselme	7 January 1992 – 4 May 1993	PS
Laurette Onkelinx	4 May 1993 – 13 July 1999	PS
Hervé Hasquin	13 July 1999 – 19 July 2004	PRL
Marie Arena	19 July 2004 – 20 March 2008	PS
Rudy Demotte	20 March 2008 – incumbent	PS

See also

• Brussels-Capital Region
• Commission communautaire française (COCOF)
• Communities and regions of Belgium
• Wallonia

External links

• French Community of Belgium, official website.
• Parliament of the French Community of Belgium, official website (some information available in English).