keeping Yves Leterme as trainer without alternative

The Belgium lived on Wednesday one of the more black days in its history. And its French-speaking minority was almost unanimous, yesterday, to denounce the "coup" Flemish then that the two main daily newspapers "Le Soir" and "The free Belgium" chose the same accuser title: "the law of the strongest".

For the first time in the history of the country, elected Flemish, unanimous, had voted the previous day in the Committee, against the advice of francophones also unanimous, a bill organizing the splitting of the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde arrondissement. Thus were they their threats to execution by engaging the process depriving the some 140,000 francophones living in the Flemish periphery of the capital of the right to express themselves in their language and to vote for French-speaking candidates in the elections. "At 14: 30, on 7 November, it is a certain idea of the Belgium who died," explained the next day "Le Soir", adding: "Gone in this country where compromise was erected in the institution, the admiration and interest around the world, and where the collective interest goes beyond the particular interest of a community."

One against the other

The shock was especially hard in the Southern French-speaking country, private for one hundred and fifty days of Government, that this coup de force Flemish provides one of the two communities against each other, ending in addition to the "cordon sanitaire" that isolated, to the North and the South, the extreme right, who have not spared its forces in coming here and having provided his voice in the operation. The Flemish members buried thus "compromise to the Belgian", become a principle of Government, preferring confrontation advocated, for several weeks, by the most extremist of them. Immediately after the vote on Thursday, the four major political parties francophones Liberal, Socialist, sociaux-chrétiens and green gathered to denounce the "serious political aggression" and this "breach of national balance." In their eyes, the coalition blue-orange liberal and Christian-Democrats of francophone and Dutch-speaking side who tries to form the next Government, headed by the "trainer" Christian Democratic Flemish Yves Leterme, appeared doomed, the latter having failed or tried to avoid the vote.

Yesterday, liberal and French-speaking sociaux-chrétiens were more measured suggesting that talks suspended for the formation of a Government could resume... keeping Yves Leterme as trainer without alternative. Comments soon, confirmed by the King of the Belgians, Albert II. The sovereign was asked, in the afternoon, Yves Leterme to continue his task "so that a Federal Government to be formed quickly. Albert II also wished that the Chairmen of the House and Senate "take an initiative to begin a dialogue on the pursuit of balanced development of the institutions and to strengthen cohesion between communities." The force Wednesday and could have the opposite effect from that intended by its initiators. After five months of crisis and a real threat of rupture between the two communities, parties of the centre and the moderate right, could finally be less intransigent to continue to govern and to live together, as wished by the majority of their constituents.