Wallonia the Capital City of Namur

Wallonia (French: Wallonie) or the Walloon Region (French: Région Wallonne) is the predominantly French-speaking region that constitutes one of the three federal regions of Belgium, with its capital at Namur. Its official languages are French and German.

Demographics and language

The Walloon Region occupies the southern part of Belgium. It has a surface area of 16844 km² (55.18% of Belgium) and comprises the following provinces:
Hainaut
Liege
Luxembourg
Namur
Walloon Brabant
Charleroi

Its major cities and towns include Liège, Namur, Charleroi, Mons, Tournai, Arlon, Bastogne, Wavre, Verviers, Dinant and Eupen.

French is the official language in most municipalities. German (with French facilities) is the official language in nine eastern municipalities which belonged to Germany until 1918 and now form the German-speaking Community of Belgium. Several French-speaking municipalities have facilities in Dutch or German (or both).

The variety of French spoken in Wallonia is Belgian French, which differs from the standard French of France to various degrees depending on the speaker. The French language used in the administration and in the media is very similar in Belgium and in France. One notable difference is the use of use of the words septante (70) and nonante (90) in Belgium, as opposed to soixante-dix and quatre-vingt-dix in France.

In 1990, Belgium also officially recognised Champenois, Gaumais, Picard, and Walloon as regional languages. Walloon and Picard dialects used to be the predominant languages of the Walloon people until the beginning of the 20th century; French was the language of the upper class. With the development of education in French, these dialects have been in constant regression. There is currently an effort to revive Walloon dialects: some schools offer language courses in Walloon, which is also spoken in some radio programmes, but this effort remains very limited.

Some 70,000 people live in the German-speaking community of Belgium, which has been presented as the best-protected minority in Europe. Nevertheless, there is a drive in the German-speaking community towards gaining more autonomy from the Walloon Region. The current president of the executive of the German-speaking community, Karl-Heinz Lambertz, wants his community to obtain regional autonomy, thus cutting it completely off from Wallonia.

Economy

The Walloon economy experienced a strong development in the 19th century, essentially in the regions of Liege and Charleroi. Belgium was then the first country in continental Europe to undergo an industrial revolution in the early 1800s, mainly based on iron and coal industries. The profitability of these types of heavy industries started declining in the first half of the 20th century, which saw the center of industrial activity shift to the northern part of Belgium. The crisis in the steel industry led to a painful economic restructuration in Wallonia.

The current Walloon economy is relatively diversified, although certain areas — especially around Charleroi and Liège — are still suffering from the steel industry crisis, with a high unemployment rate. The Ardennes area south of the Meuse River is a popular tourist destination, with places such as Bastogne, Dinant, Durbuy, and the famous watering place of Spa.

Politics

Since 23 April 1993, Belgium is a federal state, geographically split into three Regions and linguistically split into three Communities. The Walloon Region is one of the three regions (southern region, mainly French-speaking, with a population of 3,360,000), the two other regions being the Flemish Region (northern region, mainly Dutch-speaking, with a population of 5,900,000) and the Brussels-Capital Region (officially bilingual French/Dutch but mainly French-speaking, with a population of 980,000).

The Walloon region has a parliament (one chamber with 75 members elected for five years) and a government responsible in front of the parliament.

The composition of the parliament for the 2004-2009 legislature is as follows:
Parti Socialiste (socialist party) : 34
Mouvement réformateur (liberal democrats, center right) : 20
Centre démocrate humaniste (former Christian party) : 14
Front national (”nationalist” party) : 4
Ecolo (green party) : 3

The head of the government, called Ministre-Président, was Jean-Claude Van Cauwenberghe until 2005, when Elio Di Rupo took his place.

Etymology

There are theories about the derivation of the name ‘Wallonia’. It may have come from the Gaulish vellaunos meaning “valorous”. Its root vella gave the Cymric wallon as in the famous hero’s name Caswallon.

It is also one of many Germanic placenames containing the root Gal or Wal which means ‘foreigner’.

The term Walloon’ was also used in the late 18th and the 19th century to refer to French-speakers who migrated to the Netherlands, e.g. ‘Walloon parishes’ in Dutch province of Nederlands-Limburg.