Belgium has a new prime minister whose political purpose was long to break up the nation, gut the state structures and give ever more autonomy to his northern Flanders at the cost of everyone else.

Once an advocate of separation from French-speaking Wallonia, Bart De Wever, the president of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), has become the head of the federal government.

Bart De Wever took the oath early Monday, looking straight at King Philippe, the latest monarch of a royal house he so long had little but disdain for because it symbolized the old concept of Belgian unity.