Belgians march to keep nation united
All that Belgium wants for Christmas is a government -- and thousands of people marched through Brussels yesterday to demand that politicians should avoid the break-up of their country.
Talks on forming a coalition after elections in June are dragging on acrimoniously and there is no sign of an end to the impasse. Christian Democrats in the Flemish north are seeking greater independence, but Liberals in the French-speaking south fear that this will cause the country to divide.
But the 161-day political stand-off fuelled discussion of whether Belgium, founded in 1830, had reached the end of the road, with some newspapers debating the "Czechoslovakia option".
In a sign of the division between the two main language communities, there were noticeably more French-speaking marchers than those from the Flemish north, where support for national unity is more ambivalent.
The demonstration grew out of a website petition to "Save Belgium", which attracted 140,000 signatures in three months.
King Albert II has made frequent appeals to politicians to find solutions. Although he is widely admired as the glue which holds Belgium together, he was booed last week in a sign of growing impatience with the ruling classes. The defeated Flemish Liberals continue to run a caretaker administration that cannot take major decisions. (© The Times, London)
- David Charter in Brussels
