François Bovesse (Namur, on June 10th, 1890 - Namur, on February 1st, 1944) is a Belgian Politician and a Walloon militant.

Engaged with the Liberal party at 18 years, he is sensitized with the Walloon identity at the time of the foundation by Jules Destrée, in Namur, of the local section of the Friends of Walloon Art in 1911. Whereas he studies the right to the Université of Liege, he creates the newspaper " Sambre and Meuse" in 1912 whose currency becomes “ For art and Wallonia ”. Initially cultural, the newspaper becomes political and militates for the Walloon cause, at the time when Bovesse adheres to the Walloon League of the District of Namur and is named secretary of the Young Guard of Wallonia.

When the Great War bursts, it fights with Liege, Antwerp and on the Yser. Wounded, it is versed with the military Auditors of Calais at the end of 1914. At the end of the war, it is registered as lawyer with the Bar of Namur.

Organizer of the Walloon League of Namur, delegated to the Walloon Parliament until in 1927 and member of the Committee of the Walloon National union, it is at the origin of the organization of the festivals of Wallonia in Namur, and of the creation of the Festival Committee of Wallonia in 1923. This festival is the occasion for him to claim the equality of right between Wallons and Flemings and to denounce the appetites flamingants. Like Destrée, it perceives, in the installation of the linguistic laws of post-war period, the risk of flamandisation of the Wallonia. It fights them in the name of the linguistic and cultural homogeneity of the two areas.

Its ministerial participations make of him the man of Wallonia to the government. It defends the positions of the Walloon Mouvement there: maintenance of the Franco-Belgian military agreement, refusal of the law of amnesty and combat against the fascistic party Rex. Governor of the Province of Namur in 1937, it decides, in a letter with Paul-Emile Janson, for administrative decentralization having for base the provinces. Dislocated his functions by the occupant, François Bovesse takes again his occupation of lawyer. He pleads without any concession neither for the occupant nor for the collaborators. Those will not forgive it to him. February 1st, 1944, he is assassinated by rexists.

See too

Internal bonds

• Walloon Movement

• Festival of Wallonia

Biography

• Philippe Destatte and Micheline Libon (to dir. Paul Delforge), Note on François Bovesse in the Encyclopedia of the Walloon Movement , Charleroi, 2000, volume 1, p. 186-189.

• Chantal Kesteloot and Arnaud Gavroy, François Bovesse. For the integral defense of Wallonia , Institute Jules Destrée, Collection “Written political Walloons”, Mount-on-Marchienne, 1990.