Belgium’s state-owned rail company NMBS has received an official complaint from a passenger because a conductor on a train in Vilvoorde (Flemish Brabant) greeted everyone with the bilingual welcome ‘goeiedag, bonjour’, which is in violation of Belgium’s language laws. By law, French cannot be used in official communications, including on trains there. A little further along, in Brussels, it is allowed. But the railway company isn’t minded to side with the complainant and stands firmly behind its train conductor. It wants language laws to be applied more flexibly.
‘Bonjour’ on train in Flemish Vilvoorde triggers official complaint to the rail company
Colin Clapson
Published:
‘Goeiedag, bonjour", it’s a greeting heard across Belgium, but one that can cause irritation: when a conductor greeted passengers on the train in Vilvoorde (Flemish Brabant) with these words, it struck a nerve with one of them, who was so unhappy that he filed an official complaint with the railways.
‘The incident happened when the train conductor entered the carriage to check the tickets,’ Dimitri Temmerman of NMBS told VRT NEWS. ‘To greet everyone, he welcomed everybody in 2 languages. But that was not to the liking of one of the passengers, who thought it was unacceptable because the train was still in Vilvoorde station, and therefore in Flanders.’
Officially, language laws stipulate that French cannot be spoken in official communications in Flanders, except in municipalities where minorities enjoy special rights, the 'facilities'. In the same way Dutch is not allowed on trains in Wallonia. In the Brussels region, both languages are allowed. On the train to the airport, Dutch, French, English and German can be used so tourists can understand too. This language legislation is far too strict, the NMBS now argues.
Dimitri Temmerman: ‘We always want to respect the language legislation, but this is about a conductor who wants to welcome all the passengers on his train warmly. We are certainly not going to condemn that, but rather applaud it. We support train conductors like this, who are good ambassadors for the NMBS.’
No action will be taken
The rail company has received the complaint but is not going to follow it up. ‘Like all other complaints, we are going to analyse it and see if we can learn lessons from it. But in this case, it's really clear. If our train conductors want to greet passengers in other languages, that is certainly allowed. We are advocating a much more flexible approach to language legislation.’
In Brussels stations language use is neatly divided. In Brussels-North, announcements first list which train is arriving in Dutch, followed by French. In Brussels-South, it is the other way round. And in Brussels-Central, a very Belgian creative solution has been found. If it is an even year, the announcements start in Dutch, during odd years they start in French.