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Town bans French

Brussels: French speaking schoolchildren in Flanders, in Belgium, will have to bite their tongues in future after the town of Merchtem imposed a complete ban on French in its schools. If youngsters utter so much as a ``Oui'', rather than a ``Ja'', in the playgrounds, they will face a severe ticking off. In a sign of the growing gulf between the French and Flemish halves of Belgium, children will not be allowed to utter a single word of French on school premises. Parents can expect a lecture if they speak anything other than Flemish when they pick up children at the school gates. The town council in Merchtem, a suburb north of Brussels, voted to impose the ban to protect its Flemish identity. Merchtem is one of a series of Brussels suburbs being colonised by European officials and French speaking Belgians who cannot afford housing in Brussels. There are few language rows in the Belgian capital, which doubles as the capital of Flanders, because it is formally a bilingual city. This ends at the city limits where the Flemish-only rules kick in.

— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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