French Flanders

French Flanders (French: La Flandre française; Dutch: Frans-Vlaanderen) is a part of the historical, originally Dutch-speaking region Flanders in present-day France. The region today lies in the modern-day région of Nord-Pas de Calais, the Departement of Nord, and roughly corresponds to the arrondissements of Lille, Douai, and Dunkirk on the Belgian border.

Map showing the location of French Flanders within Nord-Pas de Calais bisected by the Lys River. To the north of the river is the French Westhoek and to the south is Lille Flanders.

Geography

French Flanders consists of two regions:

1. French Westhoek to the northwest, lying between the Lys River and the North Sea, roughly the same area as the Arrondissement of Dunkirk
2. Lille Flanders (French: La Flandre Lilloise; Dutch: Rijsels-Vlaanderen), the French parts of Romance Flanders (historically also Walloon Flanders) to the southeast, south of the Lys and now the arrondissements of Lille of Douai

History

Territorial changes due to the Treaty of the Pyrenees, including French Flanders.

The region was originally part of the feudal County of Flanders, then part of the Spanish Netherlands, in present-day Belgium. It was separated from the county in 1659 due to the Peace of the Pyrenees, which ended the French-Spanish conflict in the Thirty Years War, and other parts of the region were added in successive treaties in 1668 and 1678. The region was ceded to the Kingdom of France, and became part of the province of Flanders and Hainaut. The bulk became part of French the modern administrative Department of Nord, although some western parts of the region which separated in 1237 and became County of Artois before the cession to the French are now part of Pas-de-Calais.

During World War II, French Flanders referred to all of Nord-Pas de Calais which was first attached to military administration of German-occupied Belgium, then part of Belgien-Nordfrankreich under a Reichskommissar, and, finally part of a theoretical Reichsgau of Flanders.

Language

The Dutch-language Sprachraum, including northern French Flanders.

A streetsign in Merck-Saint-Liévin, Pas-de-Calais, showing Germanic influence in local toponyms. The name Picquendal corresponds to the modern Dutch Pikkendal.

The traditional language of the French Flanders region is a dialect of the Dutch language known as West Flemish, the French subdialect of which is known as French Flemish. It was once the dominant language of the region, but a long-time policy of Francization, starting with the introduction of French as the language of education in 1853, has led to the replacement of Dutch with French in the region. There are now between 10,000 and 20,000 daily speakers of West Flemish in French Flanders, many of whom live in the arrondissement and city of Dunkirk, and twice as many who occasionally use the dialect. Today, West Flemish is classified as a Language of France.

Though there are few speakers today, the Dutch dialect has had some influence on local toponyms. For example, the French towns of Roubaix and Dunkerque are derrived from their Flemish names of Robeke and Duinkerken.

Changes in language in the arrondissement of Dunkirk between 1874 and 1972. Maroon indicates a monolingually French-speaking area, dark green a monolingually Flemish-speaking area, orange a bilingual area with a French-speaking majority, and light green a bilingual area with a Flemish-speaking majority. The Flemish-speaking population has declined considerably since 1972.

Sources and references

• Nouveau Petit Larousse Illustré, 1952.
• French Flanders
• Ethnologue Report for West Flemish
• Flemish in France

External Links

• The Extent of Flemish in France in 1970, contains language maps