French Flanders

Geography

The Flanders occupies the major part of the area Nord-Pas-de-Calais. Lille ( Ryssel in Flemish or Rijsel in Dutch) is its main city, but it counts other important cities: Douai ( Dowaey ), Cassel ( Kassel ), Dunkirk ( Duynkerke ), Hazebrouck, Bailleul ( Beautiful ), Arras ( Atrecht ), Béthune ( Bethun ), Saint-Amand-the-Water ( Sint-Amandt-AEN-with-Scherpe ), Lens, Saint-Omer ( Sint-Omaers )… It is composed of three under-areas: the Westhoek, the Romance Flanders and Flemish Artois.

The Westhoek French or maritime Flanders lies between the Lys and the the North Sea. This territory corresponds to the district of Dunkirk. It can be broken up into three natural areas:

the Blootland (“naked country”) or maritime Plain, which includes/understands the towns of Dunkirk (Duynkerke), Bourbourg ( Broekburg ), Bergues ( Sint-Winoksbergen ), Hondschoote.
the Houtland (“country of wood”), which includes/understands the towns of Wormhout (Wormhoudt), Cassel ( Kassel ), Hazebrouck, part of Bailleul ( Belle ).
the Flat of the Lily which includes/understands Merville ( Merghem ), Steenwerck and part of Bailleul.

The Romance, also called Flanders Flanders gallicante or, wrongly, Flanders Walloon, is located at the south of the Lys ( Leye ) and corresponds to the districts of Lille ( Ryssel ), Douai ( Dowaey ) and Saint-Amand-the-Water ( Sint-Amandt-AEN-with-Schelde ).

Flemish Artois, with the towns of Lens, Béthune, Arras, Hesdin, Bapaume…, often left side by a vision minimalist reducing the extent of the French Flanders to the fur-and-with-measurement of the retreat of the use of Flemish.

Also sometimes one includes in the French Flanders the southernmost part of the Comté of Flanders (in particular the area of Valencian), even all the old province French of Flanders, that is to say the French part of the county of Flanders, the Comté of Hainaut, and Artois (districts of Boulogne and Montreuil) with for capital Lille.

Languages

The French Flanders is historically a bilingual area. This bilingualism dates from the 3rd century, time to which the Francs occupy the area partly and bring with them the Germanic dialect which will become the Flemish . The remainder of the area keeps the Romance Langue (Latin popular) of which will be born the Langue from oil. The Picard, still spoken in the area is one of the dialects of the Langue of oil which will also give the French. The linguistic border nowadays follows about the layout of the Lys.

Two languages, apart from French, are thus côtoient still in Flanders:

the Picardy (called ch' Ti in the area) in Romance Flanders and in the majority of Flemish Artois.
the Flemish in the Westhoek and the district of Saint-Omer

History

It formed integral part of the Comté of Flanders. This one passed under Burgundian domination then Spanish. The territory of the current districts of Lille, Douai and Dunkirk was gradually yielded to France during the reign of Louis XIV by the Traité of the Pyrenees in 1659, by the treated of Aachen in 1668 and by the Traité of Nimègue in 1678 (this treaty comes in particular to ratify the consequences of the Bataille of Peene to Noordpeene). The area is officially French only in 1713 with the treaty of the peace of Utrecht.

Invaded in 1791 by the Austrian , Lille is one moment occupied in spite of the heroic resistance of its population. Pichegru takes it again in 1793.

The French Flanders does not have today any more the least political institution or administrative clean, if it is not by the means of the Intercommunalité, instituted by the laws Chevènement - Voynet. The word Flanders appears indeed in the denominations of two “countries” which were born recently: the Country Mills of Flanders and the Country Heart of Flanders.

Flemish culture

The French Flanders is characterized especially by its cultural identity: until the beginning of the 20th century, the majority of the population of Westhoek, a good part of the district of Saint-Omer and a considerable extent of the Flanders gallicante spoke the Flemish , language Germanic near to the Dutch and definitely distinct from the Picard (about of which the famous chti ), Langue of oil spoken more in the south and the west. Flemish was taught in the elementary schools of the area until the prohibition of 1853 by the academy of Lille. This decree called forever into question since. One could read on the walls of the schools of the inscriptions such as “it is interdict of speaking Flemish and urinating on the walls”, association revealing in the manner of thinking of the French administration of the time. The pupils surprised speaking the prohibited language were to go to wash the mouth with soap. In the same way, until in the years 1960, one encouraged the pupils with the denouncement while making wear a dunce's cap to those which spoke their Flemish native tongue. The only manner of getting rid some was to find another “faulty”.

Today, certain elderly in the villages always speak Flemish between them. Dutch is taught in some schools and colleges in a one hour course per week, but it is not the regional language. The Institute of the Flemish Regional Language, localized with Cassel (www.anvt.org) exemption of the regional Flemish courses, organizes hours of discussion and fights so that Flemish can be taught in the schools as well as the Breton one or the Catalan. In addition, of the Flemish plays (as the Bourle) are still practiced. The village fairs are numerous, and the corporation and harvest festivals are of a traditional nature appreciated by the visitors.

The Flemish language is not recognized by the French State like regional language, this in spite of a hundred and thousand French citizens who speak or understand this language. The request for such a recognition was introduced near Luc Ferry but it encountered a refusal with the reason which Flemish is “only one component of Dutch, foreign language”.

One finds traces of the extension of Flemish in the Toponymie: Dunkirk means “church of the Dune”, Godewaersvelde “field of Geoffroy”, Brouckerque “church of the marsh”, Steenwerck “way (" travail") stone” and Hazebrouck “marsh of hare”.

There exist defense associations of the Flemish cultural heritage, such as the Flemish Comité of France.

Literature

The work of the Dunkirk author Michel de Swaen is still recognized nowadays in the whole of Dutch-speaking space like one of most important of the Flemish literature.

The popular Théâtre for the French Flanders of Flor Barbry is a Dutch-speaking theatrical company giving representations in Flanders-Western (Belgium) and French Flanders since 1954.

The northerner writer Maxence Van der Meersch often wrote on this area.

See too

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Internal bonds

External bonds

www.nordpasdecalais.fr
www.montsdeflandre.fr
a village in Flandres, History of Steenbecque with the many ones and rare iconographic documents.

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