Why is Belgium a Francophone country?
I’m sorry, but Belgium is not a francophone country. Belgium is divided in three federal regions: Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels. In Flanders Dutch is spoken In Wallonia French (and German in the East) is spoken Brussels is bilingually Dutch and French, though the majority speaks French. Approximately 59% of the ENTIRE Belgian population speaks Dutch, 40% French and less than 1% German. This makes Belgium rather a neerlandophone country than a French one. About the history: In the Middle Ages French was spoken in -what is now- southern Belgium (Wallonia) and Dutch in northern Belgium (and the Netherlands). In Brussels, Dutch was the only language spoken as well. However, when Belgium became independent in 1830, French was considered a superior language to Dutch and especially the elite gradually started to speak French. The language border shifted to the north and as Brussels became the capital of Belgium (1830), it became francificated. In the 1960s the definitive language border was
