Although citizens with French as their first language outnumbered people with Flemish as a first language by approximately 3:1 in Mouscron through the first half of the twentieth century, it remained in the Belgian province of West Flanders, in which Flemish predominates as the mother tongue of the majority. A sought to remove the long-standing inequities of class, wealth and status between French speakers and Flemish speakers which had been entrenched in the country since long before 1830. Separate language areas were established for each of the three linguistically defined communities. Each province was defined as either Flemish-speaking or else French-speaking. Special arrangements were made for the German-speaking communities in the east of Belgium, which were given a fair measure of autonomy, albeit still within the otherwise French-speaking Wallonia area. Special arrangements were also made for the Brussels region, to take account of the stark linguistic differences between adjacent and closely connected quarters of the city. But little Mouscron lacked the political muscle of Brussels or even of the German speaking eastern cantons. It was instead simply transferred from Flemish-speaking West Flanders to French-speaking Hainaut, in a move which Robert Devos, as municipal mayor, bitterly opposed, with the backing of many of his Mouscron fellow-citizens.