Parlez vous francais? Not now ...

Menen is on the Belgian side of the border with France. Photo / Getty Images

With a few universal hand gestures, you can ask for the basics in most countries, regardless of your grasp of the local language.

Getting the bill is easy, and requesting another drink is a simple task of waving a glass and digit around. But how would you ask to register your baby's birth? Or complain about the local rubbish collection?

These are some of the challenges French-speaking residents in the Belgian municipality of Menen may face after the mayor banned their language from the town hall and ordered staff to speak only Dutch.

Because while Menen may hug the border with France, it is in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking half of a country deeply divided along linguistic lines.

Under the proposals by Mayor Martine Fournier, staff would have three options when dealing with a rogue French speaker: silence, pictograms or hand gestures.

"We needed to establish strict rules to stop them speaking in French, and bring an end to the Frenchification of the municipality," her spokesman said yesterday.

The measures come into force in January. Flash cards with pictures of telephones, @ symbols and identity cards will be used for French speakers, who are one-fifth of those visiting the town hall.

The proposals were labelled "a load of nonsense" by an opposition politician, Olivier De Boel.

"The lines at the town hall are already pretty long, and this new method of communication isn't going to make them any shorter."

But the Minister for Integration for the Flemish separatist party, the N-VA, said Dutch was not spoken in the French town of Lille just over the border, so there was no reason French should be spoken in Menen.

But the difference is that Belgium is a bilingual country. It has about 4.5 million French speakers mostly living in the southern province of Wallonia. They are outnumbered by 6.5 million Dutch-speakers living mostly in Flanders. Brussels is officially bilingual, although French is most commonly heard in the centre.

Separatist sentiment remains high in Flanders. The N-VA gained record support in 2010, leading to a crisis which left Belgium without a government for 541 days.

- Independent