Without naming them, he called on them to put aside their “fratricidal” struggle to achieve one goal: the advent of an independent Flemish republic. “Stop this unproductive struggle. We have a great goal together, and that is our independence within a Flemish republic. national-Flemish bleeds when I witness this”, he declared in Ypres in front of the Monument of the Van Raemdonck brothers during a demonstration which gathered between 1,000 and 1,500 people according to the police, some 3,000 people according to organizers.
True to their words, the hardliners of the Flemish Movement say they see no future in a Belgium that would be swallowed up by its public debt. Even a confederal reform in 2024, the stated objective of the N-VA, seems illusory to them. Any reform of the State, by the requirements of majority that it implies, will lead to nothing in their eyes.
The Ijzerwake (Yser Vigil) was set up 20 years ago by dissidents from the Yser Pilgrimage, a historic event of the Flemish Movement, a victim of its divisions and whose attendance is in sharp decline. Among them are relatives or members of Vlaams Belang. Since then, the closeness of this demonstration with the extreme right in the name of the Flemish cause has regularly been singled out. The idea of a “migration stop”, defended by the extreme right, was thus found in Mr. De Wit’s speech in the name of the “cohesion” of society.
The organization of this 2022 edition sparked controversy by the aborted holding of a “frontnacht” on the sidelines of the traditional event. The city of Ypres canceled ten days ago the authorization granted to this music festival which was to be held on Saturday evening and in which groups of neo-fascist or neo-Nazi inspiration were to take part, according to a note from the Organization for the Coordination and the Threat Analysis (OCAM). The organizers have announced that they want to go to the Council of State to prove that the withdrawal of authorization was not necessary.
The local police were particularly vigilant, also on social networks, fearing incidents following the cancellation of the Frontnacht or during the “Vegil”. Saturday afternoon, however, she reports having no significant incident to deplore.