GenZedong

You basically have two Belgiums: Flanders (the Dutch part) and Wallonia (the French part) and they are basically two different countries with different cultures.

Flanders has a bit of a far right problem. It's the most populated and richest part of the country and naturally they are still pretty neolib / far right. Since it's the most populated part, most 'big' cities are here (relatively big, only Antwerp and the Brussels area have population over 1 mil). Most problems with migrants etc will happen over there and that unfortunately leads to bigotry among people. From what I have experienced as a migrant, people in Flanders are very reserved and they tend to 'stick to their own church tower', meaning they probably won't move very far from where they were born. They will have the same friend group since daycare basically and every outsider is treated with a lot of suspicion. For me, this meant it was very hard to make friends, and I'm a white guy from The Netherlands even lol. Luckily I live in Antwerp and was able to find a cool group of people, but I can tell they are considered unique persons by 'regular' Flemish people. So I ended up with lots of queer friends, commie friends, migrant friends and other Dutch people. I wouldn't call the Flemish people bigoted per se. It's not like they are all raging racists, most of them just tend to be very reserved. But I will say that a decent amount of them do have a far right problem. Compared to The Netherlands I feel like people are definitely less open minded. At my first job no one even introduced themselves to me lol. It took them a few months to figure out why I moved to Belgium. And again, I'm white. Can't imagine what it's like to be non-white, non-Dutch speaking.

Wallonia I know less of. They are more left leaning and they even have one actual right wing party versus multiple center or left leaning ones (and our Marxist party, of course!). They are the poorer part of the country, mostly due to the fall of heavy industry. Never ask a Flemish guy what he thinks about Wallonia otherwise he pulls his mask off and goes on a Hitler like racist rant. It's insane how they think about their fellow countrymen. It has absolutely beautiful nature with never ending hills and woods, and they make world class beer. I always like going to Wallonia. The people I meet there are very friendly and down to earth. I don't live there, so I can't fully speak for them, but I'm willing to say they are far less bigoted then the Flemish people.

I wouldn't call The Netherlands that progressive either. A lot of people say that due to the 1970s-early 00s in which we did make great steps forward regarding weed, LGBTQ+ rights and social securities. But for the last 25 years or so, neoliberale policies have taken place and they seem to be a holy line of thought right now. Right wing extremism is on the rise, we are consistently going lower on the LGBTQ+ rights list, inequality is growing at a tremendous pace and society is highly individual. If I were to bet money on where actual revolution would take place, my money would be on Belgium. There's a far stronger class consciousness here. Unions have a lot more power, with over 60% of all working people being a member. We have an actual marxist party and it's growing fast.