60 "RELATING TO CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE LAWS ON THE USE OF LANGUAGES IN EDUCATION IN BELGIUM" v. BELGIUM (MERITS) JUDGMENT Whether situated at Louvain or at Heverlee, the classes in question enjoy financial support from the State. Admission is granted, however, to four types of children only: children who attended the classes during the school year 1962-1963; children of employees, students and teaching staff of the University as well as members of their family living with them; children of foreign nationality, when the head of the family belongs to an international law organisation, embassy, legation or consulate; and finally, children of French-speaking Belgians if the head of the family lives outside the Dutchspeaking region. 28. Article 7 para. 3 (b) of the Act of 2nd August 1963 has already been cited in extenso in connection with the third question (para. 15 supra). It will be enough to recall here that at Drogenbos, Kraainem, Linkebeek, Rhode-St. Genèse, Wemmel and Wezembeek-Oppem, nursery and primary school teaching must be conducted in French for children when it is their maternal or usual language, "if the head of the family resides in one of the communes" and if "16 heads of family residing within the commune" concerned request it. The Commission considers this provision to be "somewhat ambiguous". It gives the following interpretation which the Belgian Government has not disputed: "It (...) appears, that heads of family who live in other communes of the same category may not join together to request the opening of a French-school in one of these communes; the request may come only from sixteen heads of family all living in the same commune. On the other hand, it appears certain that if there is a Frenchspeaking school in one of the communes in question, French-speaking children in other communes of the same category (...) may also enter it". Whatever the case may be, a child cannot attend the French classes at Drogenbos, Kraainem, Linkebeek, Rhode-St. Genèse, Wemmel or Wezembeek-Oppem if the head of the family resides elsewhere than in one of the six communes enjoying "a special status", for example in the unilingual Flemish region. 2. Arguments presented by the Applicants before or through the Commission 29. According to the Applicants, the legislation in issue is, on the two points under consideration, incompatible with Article 2 of the Protocol (P12) and Articles 8 and 14 (art. 8, art. 14) of the Convention. As far as concerns the French classes at Louvain and Heverlee, the signatories of Application No. 1994/63 (Louvain and environs), first assert that Louvain is an asset "belonging to Belgium as a whole" and consequently "should enjoy a national rather than a Flemish status". However the French section of the University was "very nearly" abolished in 1963 in the name of "the principle of the absolute integrity of Flemish territory"; this idea is said to have been given up only for practical and