Jean-Claude Juncker under attack for claiming French speakers not welcome on Belgian coast

Flemish mayors have accused Jean-Claude Juncker of being "drunk" and demanded an apology after the president of the European Commission said that French-speaking tourists were no longer welcome on the Belgian coast.

Mr Juncker’s comments rubbed salt into the open wound of deep linguistic and political divisions between Dutch-speaking Flanders and the rest of largely Francophone Belgium.

The splits, and a surging Flemish nationalist movement, have made it impossible to form a coalition government more than 100 days after elections were held.

“I have noticed, over the 30 years I have been on the Belgian coast, that tolerance has been declining,” said the outgoing president of the European Commission, which is based in Brussels, in a farewell newspaper interview.

Mr Juncker, who has denied repeated accusations he has a  problem with alcohol, said: “Thirty years ago, I was at the baker’s, the butcher’s, I could place my orders in French; today we no longer accept it. So I speak German – they accept Germans”

Mr Juncker, who has spent the last five years in Belgium and speaks French, German, English and Luxembourgish, added: “Belgium is no longer a model for successful cohabitation and that makes me sad. ”

His words drew a furious response from the mayor of Middelkerke, which is west of Ostend. He branded Mr Juncker’s comments, “insulting”.

“I think Juncker was drunk when he came here and ordered his steak, he was probably unintelligible to the shopkeeper,” mayor Jean-Marie Dedecker told a Flemish broadcaster VTM news.

“I think that’s a big insult, he’ll apologise,” he added.

The mayor of Ostend, Bart Tommelein, said Mr Juncker’s intervention was “strange”.

“Everyone is welcome here, no matter what language they are trying to speak,” he tweeted.

Belgium is divided into three federal regions; Dutch-speaking Flanders, which includes the 40 mile coast, Francophone Wallonia and Brussels, which is dominated by French speakers but officially bilingual.

Rich, more populous Flanders, which boasts economic powerhouses such as Antwerp, resents paying sums to rural, poor Wallonia and the Brussels-based federal government’s authority.

The divides were further exacerbated by May’s federal elections. The most successful party was the N-VA, right-wing Flemish nationalist party, followed by the francophone socialists in Wallonia. The PS and N-VA have refused to open talks, while Brussels returned a majority for the greens.

The picture is further complicated by the success of the extreme right Vlaams Belang, which calls for Flemish independence. The islamophobic party came second in Flanders, which makes it the third largest party in terms of votes gained in the whole of Belgium.

Every mainstream party in Belgium has agreed to a cordon sanitaire, meaning they will not enter into coalition talks with the Vlaams Belang, which was rejuvenated with a youthful leadership and savvy social media campaign

A poll published at the weekend found that if an election was held again, the Vlaams Belang, would be the largest party in Flanders, overtaking the more moderate N-VA.