French Community Day

The French Community’s September 27 feast recalls the September Days of the Belgian Revolution in 1830. Fighting in and around Brussels Park ended with Dutch forces withdrawing from the city during the night of September 26–27. The event became part of the independence narrative of the new Belgian state and later the selected anniversary of its French-speaking Community.

The constitutional entity’s formal name remains the French Community, while Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles is widely used in public communication. It exercises language-based responsibilities such as education, culture and parts of youth and media policy in French-speaking Wallonia and among French-speaking institutions in bilingual Brussels. It is distinct from the Walloon Region, whose own feast falls on September’s third Sunday.

September 27 is not a statutory employment holiday for every Belgian worker. Community administration, cultural bodies and French Community education calendars may close or suspend classes, while private companies and federal institutions follow ordinary schedules unless an agreement says otherwise. Free concerts, broadcasts, youth programmes and civic ceremonies frequently extend across several days around the anniversary.