Jules Destrée

Jules Destrée (French: [detʁe]; Marcinelle, 21 August 1863 – Brussels, 3 January 1936) was a Walloon lawyer, cultural critic and socialist politician. The trials subsequent to the strikes of 1886 determined his commitment within the Belgian Labour Party. He wrote a Letter to the King in 1912, which is seen as the founding declaration of the Walloon movement. He is famous for his quote "Il n'y a pas de Belges" (There are no Belgians), pointing to the lack of patriotic feelings in Flemings and Walloons, while pleading for some kind of federal state.

His father was an engineer in the chemical industry in Marcinelle and Couillet and later became a professor. Jules himself was a gifted student, getting his PhD in Law from the Université Libre de Bruxelles at the age of 20. His younger brother, Olivier Georges, became a monk, first in the Maredsous Abbey, later in the Keizersberg Abbey in Leuven.

Besides his judicial work, he liked circulating among the artistic and literary circles of his time. There, he met etcher Auguste Danse, whose daughter Marie, a niece of Constantin Meunier, he married in 1889.

In 1892, together with Paul Pastur, he founded the Democratic Federation. He started a political career with the socialist party Parti Ouvrier Belge (POB), and was elected as a member of the Belgian Chamber of People's Representatives in 1894, where he continued to work until his death.

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