A TV hoax suggesting Belgium was about to be split in half has caused uproar.
The spoof item by state TV in the country's French-speaking region announced the Dutch-speaking part of the country had declared independence.
The 'Flemish parliament has unilaterally declared the independence of Flanders' and King Albert and Queen Paola have fled the country, it reported.
Fuzzy pictures showed people walking in the dark to a plane on a military airfield near Brussels and pro-monarchy demonstrators outside the royal palace.
Viewers flooded the call centre of broadcaster RTBF during Wednesday night's programme and embassies called authorities to find out what was going on.
RTBF defended the item, saying it showed the 'importance of a topical political debate about Belgium's future'.
But prime minister Guy Verhofstadt's spokesman said: 'It's a bad joke that shows bad taste. It is the task of public broadcasters to inform the public correctly, not to create confusion.'
Tensions created by the language divide in Belgium have calmed since autonomy was granted in the 1980s to the Flemish Dutch-speakers and the francophones from Wallonia and Brussels.
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