Victor de Laveleye
Victor Auguste de Laveleye (6 November 1894 – 14 December 1945) was a Belgian liberal politician and lawyer. He studied law at the Free University of Brussels and worked as a lawyer, later teaching at the university.
He started his political career as a municipal councilor in Saint-Gilles in 1926 and led the Liberal Party from 1936 to 1937. He served as a member of parliament for the Brussels district from 1939 to 1945 and was Minister of Justice in 1937.
During World War II he fled to London in 1940. There he became the announcer for Radio Belgique, a BBC station aimed at occupied Belgium. The first Radio Belgique broadcast aired on 28 September 1940. In January 1941 he encouraged Belgians to use the letter “V” as a sign of victory and freedom, starting the famous “V campaign” that spread across Europe. Winston Churchill later adopted the symbol.
After the liberation, de Laveleye served as Minister of Public Education from September 1944 to February 1945 in the Pierlot governments, but his health was failing. He died on 14 December 1945 at the age of 51 in Ixelles, Brussels.
He also had a sports background, representing Belgium in tennis at the 1920 and 1924 Olympics and serving as an alternate for the 1928 Belgian hockey team. He was the nephew of Baron Edouard de Laveleye, who led the Belgian Olympic Committee.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 20:26 (CET).