Belgian-baiter Nigel Farage in Ardennes ancestry shock

It must have come as a shock to the Brussels-baiting MEP Nigel Farage last night to learn that his roots are far closer to those of his favourite Belgian punchbag than he could have imagined, writes the Daily Mail’s Simon Walters. Outspoken UKIP leader Farage made headlines when he told EU president Herman Van Rompuy he had the “charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk”. In 2010, he accused the Belgian of having “a loathing for the very concept of the existence of nation states”, adding: “Perhaps that’s because you come from Belgium, which is pretty much a non-country.” Ordered by EU officials to say sorry, MEP Farage said: “The only people I am going to apologise to are bank clerks.” He was fined £2,400 (€2,960), but has carried on mocking Belgians and the man he called Rumpy Pumpy. Now it turns out that Farage is directly descended from Georgius Ferauge, who lived in the Ardennes, which straddles France and Belgium. Monsieur Ferauge, Farage’s great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was born in Fumay, just on the French side of the border with modern-day Belgium, in 1681. He emigrated to Berkshire in England in the early 1700s. Over the years, Ferauge was anglicised to Ferridge and then to Farage. Farage, 48, who has a German wife, said last night he had no idea of his ancestral ties with the Ardennes. “I still think Belgium is a non-country and prefer British democracy to being ruled by a Belgian president of the EU,” he said. “It is not about who you feel you are – it is about what system of government you should live under. I accept the Ardennes geography but not the nationality. Belgium didn’t even exist in the days of Georgius Ferauge. It was the Spanish Netherlands, wasn’t it?”