68% back independent Brussels if Belgium breaks up: poll

Nearly seven out of 10 people in Brussels would opt for the EU capital to become an independent city state in the event that Flemish nationalist advances bring about the end for Belgium, a major poll showed on Saturday.

Sixty-eight percent of those surveyed in the federal Brussels capital region, home to nearly two million of Belgium’s 11 million population, would prefer to go it alone rather than join French-speaking Wallonia, or far less the Dutch-speaking Flanders that surrounds it, were the country to break up.

The Ipsos poll, a survey of 2,499 over the age of 18 across the three federal regions commissioned by commercial broadcaster RTL-TVI and leading French-language daily Le Soir, found that 26 percent in Brussels would want to join forces with Wallonia — but only six percent desire a hook-up with Flanders.

The findings nonetheless remained contradictory, with 66 percent of those interviewed across the three territories believing that Belgium as an entity still has some future.