Belgian literature
Because Belgium is a multilingual country, Belgian literature is divided into two main linguistic branches following the two most prominently spoken languages in the country - Dutch and French. German is the third language in Belgium and is spoken by a small community of about 70,000 German-speakers of the German-speaking Community of Belgium bordering on Germany.
Senate (Belgium)
In the past, French was the sole language of government in Belgium, and it was not until 1913 that Dutch was used in Parliament, by the liberal senator Emmanuel De Cloedt, which the French-speaking pro-Catholic newspaper "La Libre Belgique" described as "séparatisme parlementaire" ("parliamentary separatism").