Guylian chocolate. Something I'd never thought to buy, but now... I should not let Jo introduce me to any more Belgian foods, as they are each one tastier than the next, and I will no longer have time or energy to do anything other than stay home and eat everything chocolate or fried. The Belgiophilia will be out of control if we get a Tintin statue to sit in the decorative fireplace, as they have in Petite Abeille on 17th Street. But one thing at a time.
And in Francophilic Zionism news, I just came across Romain Gery's La vie devant soi, which so far involves French Jews and Muslims, and the intersecting histories of French colonialism and French anti-Semitism in Paris. This just might be the "literature" angle I've been looking for!
Sunday, July 08, 2007
New heights of Belgiophilia
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Thought you'd enjoy a story of the crazy Belgians, am writing my thesis on Belgium and every news update gets more and more absurd.
Belgium - Le Soir
Yves Leterme, a little lost in Belgium
Yves Leterme, Belgium's future Prime Minister, made a blunder on Saturday July 21st, the Belgian national holiday. When journalists asked him to sing the Belgian national anthem, 'Le Barbançonne', he sung the French national anthem 'La Marseillaise'. "One can hardly imagine Nicolas Sarkozy singing 'God Save the Queen on Bastille day, any more than Angela Merkel breaking into 'Fratelli d'Italia'. Such a thing could only happen here, in this country marked by multiple borders and fluctuating identities", comments Bénédicte Vaes. "This is not some Belgian prank. It might be interpreted as a subliminal message to the French. The man who previously represented the Flanders region is having some difficulty donning his new federal get-up. This July 21st it felt as if Mr. Belgium was on an official visit abroad, in the Kingdom of Belgium." (23/07/2007)
He told Le Soir that he knew the national anthem, but in Flemish and they wanted him to sing it in French!
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