‘Mémoires - Jean-Jacques Andrien’

In the North East of Belgium, in Herve country, in this part of Wallonia next to the Netherlands and Germany, Fouron-le-Comte, one of the six villages which has been legally annexed to a Flemish region, but is French-speaking out of choice. On Sunday 20 May 1979, a demonstration of Flemish nationalists was announced for the afternoon. Policemen on horseback are a reminder that, for almost twenty years, the region lived in a state of siege. Home invasions, the police force’s partisan attitude, indiscriminate arrests of French-speakers, such are the incidents of the day which would push one of the villagers’ spokespeople to meet the King of the Belgians.