Hello and bonjour!
It is May 2021 and I’m on a bus
and we’re going to a little village called Bousignies-sur-Roc,
in the northern French countryside
squeezed right up next to the Belgian border.
Because a couple of weeks ago,
this village hit international news
when a local farmer on the Belgian side
moved a stone out of the way of his tractor.
Which wouldn’t normally be international news,
except this particular stone was an official marker
of the border between France and Belgium.
And because he’d moved it a couple of metres towards Bousignies,
he’d made the sovereign nation of France
a couple of square metres smaller.
Or at least that’s the story that went round the world,
and I don’t want to dampen anyone’s French fries
but as a part time professional pedant,
I have some questions:
for example,
can you really move an international border just by moving a stone?
Was it really in the way of someone’s tractor?
And perhaps most importantly (for French viewers at least),
it’s now a couple of weeks after the news broke,
have you got your country back yet?
Welcome to Bousignies and the Belgian Border Bungle.
This is Bousignies-sur-Roc,
a rural village of about 400 people
most of whom seem to work on a farm.
It’s the kind of place where everyone will give you a friendly "bonjour",
and I get the impression nothing much has happened since about the 1940s
when because it’s on the French-Belgian border admittedly quite a lot happened,
but let’s try not to bring all that up again.
It’s home to an 18th-Century church,
a small town hall,
several cows
and a few horses
and of course
we’re not here to see any of that.
So the mission today is very simple -
Number 1: find the border stone.
And number 2: see if it’s in the right place.
Now that does sound simple
except I don’t actually know where we’re going,
and because I’m a man,
it hasn’t even crossed my mind to ask for directions.
So first let’s have a look at a map.
Here is Bousignies, where the bus dropped us off.
We’re looking for a border stone,
so chances are, and go with me here,
it’s on the border.
Problem is, Bousignies is surrounded by the border on three sides.
So the stone could be anywhere along this extremely squiggly line.
Our first mission then is to at least find the border,
and hopefully a stone,
and then we can work from there.
So if I’ve got it right, the Belgian border is just up there
and these are the woods where we should find that stone.
Should be nearly ther…
ah!
That looks a lot like a border stone.
It’s not THE one but it is A one.
They date back, as I’m sure you all know, to the 1820 Treaty of Kortrijk,
which defined the border between France and Belgium,
except back then Belgium was still part of the Netherlands,
which is why this is a Dutch flag,
and the stones have the letter N on them.
When Belgium gained independence ten years later it inherited the border
which has stayed much the same ever since,
even if some of the rivers that it was supposed to follow haven’t.
So if I move this stone does that mean I’ve moved the border?
Well… no.
Not since about 100 years ago.
These days the border is fixed by more advanced technologies
but moving a stone is still legally a contravention of the Treaty of Kortrijk.
So I’m going to leave it alone.
And anyway, we now need to find the one that HAS been moved,
and we still don’t know where exactly it is,
so let’s go back to those news articles to try and find some clues.
As far as I can tell the story was first picked up by the regional newspaper La Voix Du Nord,
or in English, (attempts vaguely northern accent) "The Voice Of The North".
They tell us that the discovery was made by 3 local historians
who were out for a walk along the border
when they came across a stone that wasn’t in the right place.
And one of them, Jean-Pierre Chopin, is quoted as saying
“I immediately got the impression that the border stone located right at the end of the woods,
had moved”.
Well that’s quite useful, because we now know it’s at the end of the woods.
And looking back at the map, that means it must be at a point where the border
comes out of a wood.
In other words here
here
or here.
Or here.
Or... actually that could be quite a lot of places.
But wait! That’s not the only clue
because in another article they tell us it’s between Bousignies-sur-Roc
and the Belgian village of Montignies-Saint-Christophe.
That helps us narrow it down a bit,
and we also have all these photos and videos.
We know that it looks like this.
We also know that Mr Chopin, who is a serious historian,
has now been described on national television as a “border stone hunter”.
Imagine that was your career!
Going around hunting for border st...
Oh wait.
Anyway, I reckon we start heading through the woods towards this spot at the eastern end.
There is just one problem…
hmm.
So... I’ve actually had to come slightly into Belgium
I’m walking along the border itself at the moment.
The trees are in France and the path is in Belgium.
And the problem is the trees, the woods here,
that’s private property so I can’t walk through it,
so I had to come into Belgium.
And technically at the moment, visitors to Belgium are still supposed to quarantine.
But if you’re visiting for less than 48 hours you do not need to quarantine.
You don’t even need a test.
So, as long we get out in 48 hours we should be all good.
Also, that looks a lot like the stone.
And here it is, the famous stone!
And… it’s still over there.
I still don’t quite get this story about a farmer moving it because he couldn’t get
his tractor through.
Where the stone is now, and where the stone is supposed to be,
which as far as I understand is just a couple of metres to the left here
doesn't make a lot of difference.
You're not getting a tractor through the barbed wire fence anyway.
So that story seems a bit suspect.
And the reason it seems suspect is because it’s not true.
In the original French article all that Mr Chopin says
is that the farmer probably moved the stone to make his field bigger.
They then they ask the mayor of Bousignies, Mme Welonek, who says
“the stone's definitely moved, but it weighs more than 150kg, he must have used a tractor”.
Someone somewhere has mashed those two quotes together
to get an angry farmer who finds a stone in the way of his tractor.
It’s probably a completely innocent total misrepresentation
but it just happens to make more clickable headline.
This is what then spreads around the globe as fact and now you know how viral journalism works.
And look I’m not having a go at anyone,
it is very easy to make mistakes in research,
in fact thanks to laws of irony there is almost a 100% chance that I’ve done it somewhere
in this video.
Please enjoy letting me know in the comments.
But there is a final twist to the story.
FranceBleu managed to track down the Belgian landowner himself,
turns out he’s not even a farmer, he’s a retired veterinary surgeon,
and he says... he didn’t do it.
So there we go: there is no farmer,
and even if he was one, he didn’t move the stone,
it wasn’t in his way,
and even if he did and it was,
it wouldn’t really have moved the border
and France hasn’t really lost any territory.
THE END.
Except: what actually happened here?
The truth itself remains a mystery.
We may never know who moved the stone
or how and why they did it.
It’s a modern day Stonehenge!
### MUSIC: instrumental cover of "Stonehenge" by Ylvis ###
Now normally at this point in the video
I tell you how you can come and visit this place yourself,
but with the border situation here still unresolved at the time of filming,
the question you’re probably asking is:
is it safe?
Well despite some signs of potential civil unrest in Bousignies
I can bring you good news:
the Belgian mayor of Montignies has promised to put the stone back,
while on her part, the French mayor of Bousignies has stated that conflict should be avoidable.
And for the time being, here in the (couple of square metres of) disputed territory itself,
a fragile peace remains.
Anyway, I’ve only got 47 and a half hours now to get myself out of Belgium,
so thank you all for watching,
and I will see you soon.