When in 1968, French-speaking socialist politicians in Brussels (led by Henri Simonet) arranged the Brussels party list to ensure Piet Vermeylen, Hendrik Fayat and other Flemish socialist politicians from Brussels, Halle and Vilvoorde were virtually unelectable, Vermeylen took the unprecedented step of splitting the party and forming a rival Brussels Flemish Socialist Party, called "Red Lions". After his surprise re-election, he became the first Belgian Minister of Dutch Language Education in the new government, led by Christian Social Prime Minister Gaston Eyskens. When armies of the Warsaw pact invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968, Vermeylen, who was secretly visiting Brno as a simple tourist, barely managed to escape to Austria. He stayed on as a minister until 1972, and soon after quit active politics. In 1984, he wrote an autobiography.