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Originally Posted by Lurker
Are there identifiable areas that mainly speak one of the two languages?
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here's a small summary:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/europe/10227430.stm
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Belgium is a country divided.
The southern region is home to mostly French speakers, who make up about 40% of the population. The other 60% are Dutch speakers who live in the Flemish north.
To add confusion, the capital Brussels is officially a bilingual (but largely francophone) enclave in Flemish territory.
The linguistic gulf runs deep. There are no national political parties - they too follow the language split, so there are both francophone and Flemish Liberal, Socialist, Christian Democrat and Green parties.
Likewise, there are no national broadcasters, no national newspapers or magazines.
Autonomy push
The Belgian state is already highly decentralised. Education, health, and transport are all the responsibility of powerful regional parliaments.
To make the system work, politicians from both communities have to co-operate. But in recent years that co-operation has broken down.
Some politicians from the wealthier Flemish region are pushing for even more autonomy, for example by taking control of the social security system.
French speakers from the more impoverished south fear that would mean the country breaking up.
These elections were called when - for the third time in as many years - the government collapsed.
The trigger was a complex argument over voting rights for French speakers living in Flemish towns on the outskirts of Brussels.
They have been allowed to vote for French language parties in the Brussels region, even though they live in a Flemish area.
The Constitutional Court ruled that was illegal. But all attempts to find a compromise have failed.
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There is actually also a German-speaking community/region in the east of the country, but it's really small and part of the Walloon (French-speaking) region, from what I understand...
the three main regions look like this:
