Walloons are a Gallo-Romance ethnic group native to Wallonia and the immediate adjacent regions of Flanders, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Walloons primarily speak langues d'oïl such as Belgian French, Picard and Walloon. Walloons are primarily Roman Catholic, with a historical minority of Protestantism which dates back to the Reformation era.
Walloon Brabant is a province located in Belgium's French-speaking region of Wallonia. It borders on the province of Flemish Brabant and the provinces of Liège, Namur and Hainaut. Walloon Brabant's capital and largest city is Wavre.
Wallonia, officially the Walloon Region, is one of the three regions of Belgium—along with Flanders and Brussels. Covering the southern portion of the country, Wallonia is primarily French-speaking. It accounts for 55% of Belgium's territory, but only a third of its population. The Walloon Region and the French Community of Belgium, which is the political entity responsible for matters related mainly to culture and education, are independent concepts, because the French Community of Belgium encompasses both Wallonia and the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region but not the German-speaking Community of Belgium.
Walloon is a Romance language that is spoken in much of Wallonia and, to a very small extent, in Brussels, Belgium; some villages near Givet, northern France; and a clutch of communities in northeastern Wisconsin, United States.
"The Song of the Walloons" is the regional anthem of Wallonia in Belgium. The original lyrics were written by Théophile Bovy in 1900 in the Walloon language. A year later, it was set to music composed by Louis Hillier. Performed for the first time in the city of Liège, the song quickly spread to other parts of French-speaking Belgium and established itself like a "national" anthem for Wallonia.
Wallonie libre is a minor political party active in Wallonia in Belgium which originated as a group active within the resistance in German-occupied Belgium during World War II. Affiliated with the Walloon Movement, its ideology became increasingly radical in the post-war period.
The Walloon Movement or is an umbrella term for all Belgium political movements that either assert the existence of a Walloon identity and of Wallonia and/or defend French culture and language within Belgium, either within the framework of the 1830 Deal or either defending the linguistic rights of French-speakers. The movement began as a defence of the primacy of French but later gained political and socio-economic objectives. In French, the terms wallingantisme and wallingants are also used to describe, sometimes pejoratively, the movement and its activists. To a lesser extent, the Walloon Movement is also associated with the representation of the small German-speaking population in the East Belgium of the Walloon Region.
The Walloon Movement traces its ancestry to 1856 when literary and folkloric movements based around the Society of Walloon language and literature began forming. Despite the formation of the Society of Walloon Literature, it was not until around 1880 that a "Walloon and French-speaking defense movement" appeared, following the linguistic laws of the 1870s. The movement asserted the existence of Wallonia and a Walloon identity while maintaining the defense of the French language.
The history of Wallonia, from prehistoric times to the present day, is that of a territory which, since 1970, has approximately coincided with the territory of Wallonia, a federated component of Belgium, which also includes the smaller German-speaking Community of Belgium. Wallonia is the name colloquially given to the Walloon Region. The French word Wallonie comes from the term Wallon, itself coming from Walh. Walh is a very old Germanic word used to refer to a speaker of Celtic or Latin.
The Manifesto for Walloon Culture was a document published on September 15, 1983, in Liège, Belgium. Signed by 75 prominent figures from the artistic, journalistic, and academic communities of Wallonia, the manifesto aimed to promote Walloon culture and identity.
The Walloon language has been written using various orthographies over its history, most notably the Feller system and Common Walloon.
The flag of Wallonia represents the Walloon Region and the French Community of Belgium. Designed in 1913, the flag depicts a red rooster on a yellow field. The rooster represents Walloon adherence to French culture as well as their Gallo-Roman origins. The red and yellow coloring is historically associated with the city of Liège. The flag's association with Wallonia also mean that it is commonly used by the Walloon Movement.
Water supply and sanitation in Belgium is provided by a large variety of organizations: Most of the 581 municipalities of Belgium have delegated the responsibility for water supply and sanitation to regional or inter-municipal utilities. There are more than 62 water supply utilities, including 2 regional, 30 inter-municipal and 30 municipal utilities. Another 100 mostly small municipalities provide services directly without having a legally of financially separate entity for water supply. Water is not scarce in Belgium and water supply is generally continuous and of good quality. However, wastewater treatment has long lagged behind and Brussels only achieved full treatment of its wastewater in 2007. In 2004 the European Court of Justice ruled condemning Belgium's failure to comply with the EU wastewater directive, and the ruling has not been fully complied with so far. Wallonia satisfies 55% of the national needs in drinking water while it counts only 37% of the population. Flanders and Brussels are dependent on drinking water from Wallonia, at a level of 40% and 98% respectively.
André Renard was a Belgian trade union leader who, in the aftermath of World War II, became an influential figure within the Walloon Movement.
Heritage registers in Belgium include immovable heritage such as World Heritage Sites, and National heritage sites, but also intangible cultural heritage. The agency responsible for keeping and updating inventories of immovable heritage is dependent on the region, as is the name for the object, which is called Beschermd erfgoed, Biens classés or Kulturdenkmal depending on the language of the municipality of the location.
Beschermd erfgoed is the official term to describe Flemish National Heritage Sites listed by law to protect and spread awareness of Belgian cultural heritage, specifically in Flanders. The term is also used nationwide to refer to national heritage sites. Because Belgium is officially a tri-lingual country, the other nationwide terms used in the rest of the country are the French term Bien classé and the German term Kulturdenkmal.
The Élysette is the executive seat of the Government of Wallonia. It houses the office of the Minister-President of Wallonia, and is located in Namur, Namur province, Belgium.
The Schmerling Caves are a group of caves located in Wallonia on the right bank of the stream called the Awirs, near the village of Awirs in Flémalle, Belgium. The caves are notable for their past fossil finds, particularly of hominins. They were explored in 1829 by Philippe-Charles Schmerling, who discovered, in the lower cave, the remains of two individuals, one of which, now known as Engis 2, was a fossil of the first Neanderthal ever found; the other was a Neolithic homo sapiens. Also known as Trô Cwaheur or Trou Caheur, this lower cave has since collapsed. A third cave was destroyed because of work on the adjacent quarry, the Ancienne Carrière des Awirs.
The Union des Femmes de Wallonie was a Belgian women's association founded in 1912 by Léonie de Waha, assisted by Marguerite Delchef, to stimulate interest in Walloon culture and politics. Initially, it encouraged women to participate in the revival of Wallonia, especially in regard to the region's language and folklore. Following the organization's re-establishment after the First World War, more attention was given to women's emancipation. In the 1930s, the focus was on women's suffrage, higher education and professional opportunities for women, although some participants continued to stress the importance of the role of women in the home. From 1920 to 1936, the UFW published the journal La Femme wallonne which generally presented a feminist approach in support of overcoming traditional stereotypes and working towards universal suffrage.
The history of the term Wallon and its derivatives begins with the ancient Germanic word walh, which generally referred to Celtic- or Romance-speaking populations with whom the Germanic peoples had contact. However, the original form of its etymon and its precise origin in the French language has not been definitively established. It may have originated from Medieval Latin after being borrowed from Old Franconian. Another possibility is that it derives, through a change in suffix, from wallec, meaning "the langue d'oïl spoken in the Low Countries." The term wallon, as we know it today, first appeared in the 15th century in the Memoirs of the medieval chronicler Jean de Haynin. Over time, the semantic scope of Wallon and its derivatives, such as the toponym Wallonie, has gradually narrowed, becoming an endonym and continuing to diminish even today.
