Ambasciata Grand Duchy of Flandrensis

Flandrensis on television
On March 21, 2010 was the Grand Duchy of Flandrensis filmed by the RTBF, a Belgian national channel. They made a documentary for the program “Questions a la une” about nobility in Belgian and the world. In the documentary they also devote a part about micronations. The RTBF bought some rights from the BBC about the Kingdom of Lovely and Danny Wallace. And accidentally they discovered on the internet the existence of a Belgian micronation, the Grand Duchy of Flandrensis.
The reporter, Samy Hosni, takes this opportunity to filmed a micronation and he contact the Grand Duke of Flandren-sis with the request for an interview and some activities what we do.
Coffee, coffee and ... more coffee
As micronation must always respect the personal life of his citizens. Although there was a great enthusiasm, not all politicians could be present: Jürgen of Bruggia had a stomach inflammation, Elisa of Gothenberg had exams, Lynn of Tarvannensis had a general repetition of the thea-tre, Maarten lives to far … but they all helped contribute to the preparations.
In total we were with six (Niels, Donovan, Brecht, Laurens, Hein and Delphine), a small group but certainly no less worthy! And the funny part, no country in the world can claim that half of their government consists of metals (laugh)! We spoke with the film crew off in Oost-nieuwkerke at 10.00 in a building of the local archer club. The politicians agreed at 09.00 to put everything ready, and the nerves were present… And while we wait we drink coffee, coffee and… more coffee.
A parliament meeting
The journalists asked us to show a few things, so we organized a meeting of the parliament. In the beginning it was difficult to ignore the camera, but then everything ran smoothly. On the agenda were several items to discuss: We voted for the withdrawal of all diplomatic relations with another nation, the organizing of the Arbeidsfeesten (our festi-val) and a protest of Count Donovan of Gandensis about the power of the Grand Duke and the political reforms.
Suddenly a surprise, the reporter gave us a package and when we open it we found a big flag of Flandrensis! Only the coat of arms had to be sewn on the flag, fortunately we had Donovan with a needle and thread (laugh).
What is Flandrensis, where is Flandrensis, ….
While Donovan sewn the flag, Samy Hosni asked questions about the meaning of the two lions on our flag. I explain that our coat of arms were inspired on the Flemish lion and that the second lion symbolize the second birth of the “pagus Flandrensis”.
The RTBF is the national channel for the Francophones in Belgium, therefore they were extra interested why we in-spired a micronation on Flanders (the Dutch part of Belgium). I told them that we’re inspired our nation on the medie-val County of Flanders and we have integrated many names and cultural elements of it in our nation, that’s also the reason why we chose a Grand Duchy instead of a Republic or a Kingdom.
They also asked why we have a micronation in Antarctica and where was Flandrensis located? I use the map of the AMU on A3-format to show where Flandrensis was located and also explain the many reasons why we’re an Antarctic micronation.
Your currency is fantastic!
For the reportage we had a lot of documents. We printed all the editions of Flandrensis Nieuws, Flan-drensis Times and the Gazet van Giddis, we develop the definitive design of our identity card, we had a map in colour, a text for our anthem, constitution, … but they were enthusiastic about our currency, the Flandri. I had to explain before the camera what the symbols meant, when we used our currency, … Samy said that our currency was fantastic, the Flandri is also the masterpiece of Flandrensis!
Hoist the flag
To end the interview, we hoist our flag with on the background our national anthem. They wanted first that we sang, but unfortunately we have no singing talent (laugh). So I just read a part of our national anthem when Brecht and Laurens hoist the flag. We greet the flag with the hand on our heart, and we looked proudly up but that wasn’t easy with the sun in our faces!
The end…After the filming we talked with the film crew, actually a very pleasant and friendly group. More than two hours they filmed us, and that for 4 minutes on television. But those 4 minutes are for us enough to have a reliable source on Wikipedia, something rare for micronations. The stress disappeared and we could relax again, in Belgium there lives 4 million people who speaks French and the idea that many people will see us made us nervous. Until Samy said to us that the RTBF not only send in Belgium but work together with other French speaking channels around the world, enough for 200 million viewers! Many will say:”4 minutes is almost nothing”, but for a young micronation like Flan-drensis means 4 minutes very much! We look forward to 21 April to see the flag of Flandrensis on television!
To finish I thanks all Flandrianen for their efforts, without them this was not possible!
Niels of Flandrensis