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As part of a major information campaign urging UK nationals living in and travelling to the EU to get ready for the country’s withdrawal from the bloc, the British government on 23 October unveiled a Brexit transport information point in Jabbeke, the Flemish Region of Belgium, also known as Flanders.
The official account of the British Embassy in Belgium enthusiastically tweeted that staff were on standby “ready & happy to provide information to hauliers and businesses to help them to get ready for Brexit”.
In what was sarcastically applauded as “yet another great bit of British diplomacy” by social media users, there was something blatantly wrong in the picture: the language.
The sign at the Total service station reads “Soyez Pret pour le Brexit” which roughly translates to “Get Ready for Brexit” and is essentially similar to the costly advertising campaign that has swamped Britain in recent weeks.
The problem is that this sign is in French.
Wake up call: people of this particular region don't speak French!
The residents of the region speak Flemish and it doesn't take an expert to realise that the sign would not go down well with the locals.
Predictably, the Twitter folks swooped in on this rather colossal mess-up by the government.
The British Embassy in Belgium has not yet offered an official comment.