The Belgian government has filed a formal intellectual property complaint against France after Jordan Bardella, president of the Rassemblement National, publicly called for the creation of a “cordon sanitaire” against the left-wing party La France Insoumise. Belgium, which invented the cordon sanitaire in 1989 and has maintained it continuously for thirty-six years, says the mechanism is being used incorrectly and without licence.
“The cordon sanitaire is a Belgian product,” a spokesperson for the Federal Public Service of Intellectual Property said at a press conference on Thursday. “It was designed, tested, and deployed in Belgium for a specific and clearly documented purpose. You cannot simply take it, turn it around 180 degrees, and use it against the opposite end of the political spectrum. That is not how intellectual property works. That is not how cordons work. You wouldn't reverse a seatbelt.”
The complaint, filed under the Benelux Convention on Intellectual Property, argues that the cordon sanitaire's original specification, drafted by Belgian Francophone parties in 1989 to isolate the Vlaams Blok, defines it as “a unidirectional democratic instrument oriented exclusively toward the far right.” The filing includes technical drawings.
“The mechanism has a front and a back,” the spokesperson continued. “Mr Bardella is operating it backwards. We cannot allow this. Not for political reasons, we are neutral on French domestic affairs, but as a matter of product integrity.”
The Belgian delegation to the European Union has requested that the matter be referred to the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market. A preliminary assessment describes France's use of the term as “a clear case of misapplication, comparable to marketing a fire extinguisher as a blowtorch.”
The Vlaams Belang, which has been the subject of Belgium's own cordon sanitaire for over three decades, issued a statement expressing “support for the French people's right to cordon whoever they wish” and adding that “Belgium could learn something about flexibility.” The statement was not acknowledged by any other Belgian party, in keeping with the cordon sanitaire.
The Belgian francophone parties, for their part, released a joint communiqué reaffirming that the cordon sanitaire “is a precision instrument, not a household tool, and certainly not something to be lent to the very people it was designed to contain.” They noted that licensing discussions could be considered “once France demonstrates a basic understanding of the product manual.”
Bardella's office has not responded. A source within the Rassemblement National described the complaint as “typically Belgian,” a phrase the Belgian embassy in Paris said it was “choosing to interpret as a compliment.”