Intervention of the APFF at the Forum on Minority Issues of the UN Human Rights Council Geneva, 24-25 November 2016 Mr Chairman, What can the 310,000 francophones living in the north of Belgium expect in the event of a natural, industrial or nuclear disaster or a pandemic in light of the fact that the UN recommends that its member states « provide timely information in a format and language that is appropriate and culturally tailored to the specific minority groups »? This is the question raised by the Association for the Promotion of French Culture in Flanders (APFF) as Flanders refuses to recognise the French-speaking minority living on its territory. To such an extent that the protection of national minorities and the fight against linguistic discrimination are sensitive -- even taboo -- subjects in Belgium. It should be noted that as a consequence of Flanders’ attitude towards its French-speaking minority: - Belgium has not yet ratified the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities of the Council of Europe, over fifteen years after signing it. This, in spite of the recommendations made by Russia, Switzerland and Hungary in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of 2011 and 2016; - Neither has Belgium ratified Protocol No. 12 to the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which prohibits any form of discrimination including discrimination based on language. It must be noted that Protocol No. 12 was approved by all relevant parliaments (federal and federated) with the exception of the Flemish Parliament. Furthermore, Belgium has not yet designated the competent body to deal with discriminations based on language as provided for in the 2007 Anti-discrimination Act (Article 29 (2)). Among a series of failures, the parliamentary committee of inquiry into the attacks of the 22nd of March in Brussels highlighted the lack of a French translation of the emergency response plan at Brussels national airport, located in Flanders. The Governor of Flemish Brabant, Lode De Witte, stated that « a plan in Dutch is sufficient since the services involved are either from Flanders or from Brussels and are therefore supposed to be bilingual ». His statement was greeted with anger by the francophone members of the committee who, obviously, do not share this opinion. In order to ensure that adequate information is available to all minorities in the event of a disaster, the APFF urges the authorities, on the one hand, to ensure that for each of the national languages (French, Dutch and German) at least one over-the-air news radio channel is broadcast throughout the Belgian territory. These radios, in addition to their usual broadcasts, must be charged with informing the public about measures to be taken in the event of disasters, at a local, provincial, regional or federal level. Currently, in Flanders, French-language RTBF programming cannot be followed comfortably beyond Ghent on portable radios. In addition, the APFF demands that all the information on measure to be taken in the event of a disaster be centralised and made available on a single, multilingual website. Currently, this is far from