History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 304

century, when it was still the custom to hold council meetings in Flemish. Some
priests and clergymen openly neglected the prohibition to teach the catechism in
Flemish and bravely supported a sanction, but a public protest was not formulated
during the 20th century except for a repeated demand in 1910 and 1921 by the priestdeputy, mayor of Hazebrouck, Jules Lemire to teach the mother tongue.Yet, thatwas
declined on the basis of ‘antipatriotism’. It is characteristic that German in Alsace and
Flemish or Dutch in French Flanders were excluded from the Deixonne law that
regulated the teaching of minority languages in 1951.
Possible ‘help’ from abroad (Wood, 1980) has hardly ever been successful. In both
world wars the German occupants tried to exploit the frustrations concerning the
French language policy in favour of their own policy. The fact that the leader of the
Flemish Movement in France, the priest Jean Marie Gantois, openly defended the
collaboration with the Nazis, compromised all Flemish linguistic or cultural claims after
the second World War. The attempts of the Belgian Komitee voor Frans-Vlaanderen
(Committee for French-Flanders) to preserve the language by organising free courses
of Modern Dutch, was able to arouse some interest for this language, but not to stop
he language shift from dialect to French.
It was not until the 1970s that the climate changed under the impulse of a movement
that was more socialist and ecologist of motivation, and that the vernacular language
got new interest: the launching of a manual: Vlaemsch leeren [Learning Flemish] and
the struggle for the legalising of a regional broadcasting association Radio
Uylenspiegel finally changed the climate. In 1977 the Reuzekoor was founded in
Dunkirk, an association that revitalised the traditional folk songs in both Flemish and
French. In order to get the singers accustomed to the Flemish language a Flemish
course was launched that in 1992 led to a textbook by Jean Louis Marteel: Cours de
Flamand (Flemish Course; Marteel, 1992). The culminating point was the ‘Université
Populaire’ of 1981, a meeting of all groups and associations concerned in
Hazebrouck. They edited a manifest which stated, among other things, the following:
we urge that measures be taken, especially on a regional basis, to preserve (better
than before) the undamaged environment and the cultural heritage of FrenchFlanders, viz.: landscapes, picturesque or historical places, works of art, technical or
everyday objects, archives, etc. We also want more money to be invested in order to
perform these tasks and in order to correct some mistakes of the past.
The French-Flemings also insist that their right to use their own language be
recognised and implemented. They demand that the Flemish dialect, spoken or
understood by some 150,000 people in the ‘Westhoek’, no longer be considered an
allogenous language, but be acknowledged as one of the mother tongues of French
citizens. Consequently, they want that particular language to be used in preschool
and primary school education. It has to be taught to children in order to give them the
opportunity to fully develop in their ancestral language and to acquire amastery
(during secondary education) of the Dutch standard language to which their Flemish
dialect belongs and which is the mother tongue of 22 million of Europeans across our
border.
In 1982 under the first Mitterand government the Minister of Education Savary
launched a ‘circulaire’ that created possibilities for the teaching of the regional
languages in France. The association Tegaere Toegaen (‘Advance together’) was
able to get the teaching of the Flemish dialect launched in several elementary schools

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