Usually one country moving into another country’s territory is a huge geopolitical deal, often followed by military action. But when a Belgium farmer accidentally moved his country’s border into French territory, everyone just had a good laugh about it.
The farmer was apparently annoyed by the boundary stone as he plowed his field, so he picked it up and moved it a little more than two meters south, thus changing the line established 200 years ago under the Treaty of Kortrijk. This treaty laid out the boundaries between France and the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (under the reign of King William I of the Netherlands). Belgium inherited the border upon its independence from the Netherlands in 1830.
“He made Belgium bigger and France smaller, it’s not a good idea,” David Lavaux, mayor of the Belgian village of Erquelinnes, told French TV channel TF1.