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Municipal flags in province Limburg (Belgium)

Hasselt
Voeren (Fourons)

See also:

Hasselt

(Click on flag for larger version)

With the two mascottes of Hasselt (capital town of Limburg) and Tongeren (oldest town in Belgium: Atuatica Tungrorum, home town of Ambiorix, Eburon king who challenged and fought Julius Caesar).

Rik Beijnsberger, 12 December 1998

Voeren (Fourons)

by Christophe Janssen

The flag shall be adopted by the new municipal council of Voeren on 1 January 2001.

Christophe Janssen, 25 October 2000

All the Flemish communes are obliged since the decrees of the 28th January 1977 and 21st December 1994 to have a coat of arms and a flag. These emblems are adopted by the authorities of the communes, approved by the Flemish Heraldic Council and officially recognized by the concerned minister. If the flag or a coat of arms of a commune wasn't approved by the Flemish Heraldic Council, this last can propose and fix officially the flag or the coat of arms of that commune. That has already happened with the case of the commune of Voeren (Fourons) which didn't want the coat of arms / flag proposed by the Flemish Heraldic Council. This has led to the State Court which decided that this commune should have the coat of arms / flag proposed by the Flemish Heraldic Council, that is:
"quartered: 1 and 4, or a lion sable langued and armed gules (Flanders); 2 and 3, argent a lion gules langued, armed and crowned or (Limburg)".

Pascal Vagnat, 10 May 1999

Unofficial coat of arms

by Jean-Louis Xhonneux

The municipal council of Fourons refused to adopt arms and flag, although the Flemish legislation imposed it. Due to this lack of adoption, the Flemish Heraldic Council imposed a quartered flag with the Flemish and Limburgian lions. This is unacceptable for the Francophons of Fourons, who never stopped claiming to join the province of Liège. They were rattached to Limburg for obscure questions of delimitations and compensations when the linguistical border was defined. The municipal council went to the court for the flag question but lost the case.
The municipal council refuses to use the quartered flag (and could be fined for this) but uses the banner of arms shown above. The arms bear the flight of steps of Liège and eleven alternating red and yellow stripes, which (probably) stand for the eleven communes that were merged to form Fourons (plurial since they were more than one Fouron among them) / Voeren.
The flag is (probably) not official even if adopted by the municipal council, because the Flemish Heraldic Council could not have accepted such a revendicative design.

Pascal Vagnat, 10 February 2000