Mouscron/Moeskroen - Estaimpuis/(Steenput) - Pecq

I live very close to the Wallonian (and French) border, but I hardly ever go there. When I was a kid I often biked to Roncq & Tourcoing, which are suburbs of the French metropole Lille/Rijsel. But I never biked to Wallonia. The closest Walloon city is Mouscron/Moeskroen, which is a pretty dull town. There's nothing to see really. The only reason you'd ever go there is because of its train connection to Lille/Rijsel. Or when your dad is playing an important billiard game in a local billiard club there. Or when you are a soccer fan (Mouscron plays in Premier League!).

Mouscron/Moeskroen is a facility municipality which allows the large dutch speaking minority to get documents and city help in their native tongue. There are a few of these communities in Belgium, but they aren't as peaceful as Mouscron/Moeskroen. I actually have never heard any stories about the Flemish being discriminated or insulted in that city. A bit further you have the Walloon enclave of Comines/Komen, which is also a facility municipality, but where tensions are much higher. A typical news story on September 1st (the first day of the school year) is that anti-Flemish inhabitants of Comines/Komen barricade the gates of the Flemish elementary school. It's more a tradition, than violence really. But still, it's stupid.

Anyways, the reason why so may Flemish live in Mouscron/Moeskroen is because of the cheaper housing. It can really make a huge difference in your budget. A former colleague of mine went to live in a fermette style house in Estaimpuis and paid some 70.000 euro less than in Flanders. That's a lot!

Estaimpuis is the first real Walloon town across the border, considering that Mouscron/Moeskroen has a bit of a special status. Estaimpuis is called Steenput in Flemish, but since the city is not a facility town, you'll never hear/read the Flemish name at all. The town itself exists of several smaller villages, of which Saint-Leger is the nicest one. It has a very nice church annex cemetery and it's surrounded by farmland: an excellent area to bike in! There's a little canal dug out there along an old river called the Spiere/Espière, which has given its name to a small Flemish dual town along the border: Spiere-Helkijn/Espièrres-Helchin. And that is again a facility community, where the French speaking inhabitants have the right to get administration done in French. Both the canal and the river finally flow into the Scheldt river.

Another nice little church can be found in the next Walloon town of Pecq. Now, Pecq is a name I've heard so much when I was a child, but if you had asked me this morning why, I wouldn't have known the answer. The only thing I remember was that we had to protest with the elementary school (!!!!) against the construction of a road that was called Pecq-Armentières. I had never thought about this until I drove by the town today and I looked it up on the internet. Apparently, the road construction was very controversial. There were environmentalist groups against it. But it was also a major clash between the Flemish and the Walloon communities. That, however, I did not know.

As mentioned before there's a place called Comines/Komen which is part of Wallonia, but is an enclave between Flanders and France. In the early '80s (when I was a kid) the Walloon government wanted Comines/Komen to be connected with the rest of Wallonia by a good, fast road and not everyone liked that idea. There were many suggestions for the road: going through Flanders, going through France, going along the border through the Lys and Scheldt river valleys. Nobody seemed to agree on the right location of the new road. After years of protests and meetings there was a road built which isn't a straight road at all, and somehow includes parts of the ring around Lille/Rijsel. Funny how I don't remember this road being a communautaire conflict (a conflict between the Flemish and French Speaking communities in Belgium). Also interesting how this is no longer an issue anymore.