The hard right is getting closer to power all over Europe

IN SINT-GENESIUS-RODE, a well-to-do commuter town in the hills south of Brussels, a crowd of 50 or so gathered on September 2nd in a parish hall to drink champagne and promote the dismemberment of Belgium. The meeting was organised by Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest), a right-wing party that rails against such threats to the Flemish way of life as Islam, immigration and—most pernicious of all—the French language. The town is in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking half of Belgium), but French-speakers have been moving in for decades and are now the majority. The only way to stop the rot, explains Klaas Slootmans, a member of the Flemish regional parliament from Vlaams Belang, is for Flanders to declare independence.