De Gordel

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De Gordel (Dutch for "the belt") is a highly political cycling and walking event around Brussels, Belgium. The event is organised by the Flemish Region each year on the first Sunday of September.

While opinion on the event varies, many see this as a deliberately provocative move by the Flemish Region and those who choose to take part (including Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt in 2005) in order to reaffirm their belief that the area covered by the event is a purely Flemish, or rather Dutch-speaking area. In 2006, Minister-President of Flanders Yves Leterme said: "The Gordel is a pleasant way to say that we want to keep the villages around Brussels Flemish."^[1]

So close to Brussels, and passing through several Dutch-speaking towns with French-speaking majorities in some areas, this event gains wide television coverage through news reports and serves as a very visual reminder that linguistic and political divisions among neighbouring regions and even neighbours themselves can often run deep in the area immediately surrounding Brussels.

1 Incidents
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Incidents

De Gordel has fallen victim to sabotage actions several times in the past. During the 2006 event, local police caught a lawyer and another person throwing thumbtacks on the road. ^[2]