The World - News from Oct. 16, 1987

Belgian Prime Minister Wilfried Martens and his Cabinet, split over the country’s perennial linguistic differences, offered their resignations over a dispute involving a mayor who insists on speaking French in a Flemish-speaking section. The country is divided into French-speaking Wallonia in the south and Flemish-speaking Flanders in the north. The royal palace said King Baudouin held his decision on whether to accept the resignation “in abeyance.” Marten’s Flemish-speaking Christian Democratic Party wants Jose Happart, mayor of Voerden in Flanders, removed.