The Walloon Movement (French: Mouvement wallon) is an umbrella term for all Belgium political movements that either assert the existence of a Walloon identity and of Wallonia and/or defend French culture and language within Belgium, either within the framework of the 1830 Deal or either defending the linguistic rights of French-speakers. The movement began as a defence of the primacy of French but later gained political and socio-economic objectives. In French, the terms wallingantisme and wallingants are also used to describe, sometimes pejoratively, the movement and its activists. To a lesser extent, the Walloon Movement is also associated with the representation of the small German-speaking population in the East Belgium of the Walloon Region.

Historians agree that the Walloon political movement began in 1880 with the foundation of a Walloon and French-speaking defence movement following the first linguistic laws of the 1870s. For historians like Lode Wils, the movement was born as a movement of administrative colonisation of Flanders. It took then the character of a movement asserting the existence of Wallonia and a Walloon identity without giving up the defence of French. Wallonia asserted timidly since 1898 but which becomes the principal claim since 1905 with a climax at the Walloon congress of 1912 and Jules Destrée's Letter to the King.

The First World War and a reviving of Belgian patriotism applied a brake to the movement and its spin offs. Walloon militants banded together in 1930s under the patronage of the Walloon Concentration where the radical ideas of 1912 were born again bringing into existence the linguistic laws of 1932. During the Second World War, several activists distinguished themselves within Resistance by forming various clandestine groupings. This world war radicalised even more the movement which for the first time speaks about independence ideas, and which will lead to its active participation in the Royal Question in 1950. Then follows a lull long of a decade which ends with the 1960–61 Winter General Strike with at its head André Renard who ally Walloon Movement claims and workers' claims. Gilson Act of 8 November 1962 and the transfer of Fourons (Voeren in Dutch) from Liège Province to Limburg Province resulted in political and linguistic strife with some violence during the 1970s and 1980s. The Fourons are still considered by walloon activists as a part of Wallonia occupied by Flanders, for example Walloon Minister-President Jean-Claude Van Cauwenberghe during a speech in 2001 described Wallonia 'from Fourons to Mouscron, from Nivelles to Arlon' and he also proposed in 2006 a Walloon constitution with a bi-regional status for the municipality in the Article 9.

The central theme of the Walloon Movement is the ideals of the French revolution and a love of French language and culture. This francophilia gave rise to the Walloon Movement and the Walloon militants' aim of growing closer to France and more distant from the Netherlands, as expressed in an anti-Benelux policy:

"In fact, the Walloon Movement is the first (and virtually the only) organisation to warn public opinion against the implications of the Benelux policy and, as a counterbalancing or complementary force, to call for closer economic and cultural cooperation with France. […] When viewed as a modern version of Orangism, the pro-Benelux policy can be seen to promote certain Flemish interests. According to Georges Dotreppe, a member of the directory of "Wallonie Libre", the Benelux concept, created on English soil and orientated towards Great Britain and the United States, supports an Anglo-Saxon anti-French policy which in no way embraces the interest of Wallonia, a sister community of France."

"Rattachism", the French irredentist trend in the Walloon Movement, is a good example of this love for the French republic. This sentiment is notably expressed by Albert du Bois, who in his book The Belgians or the French?, published in 1903, denounces the subjection of the Walloons to the Flemings, who are merely the successors of the previous Dutch, Austrians and Spanish occupiers of Wallonia. The French soul of the Walloons must drive them to yearn for a return to "l'œuvre de Quatre-vingt-treize" (the invasion of the Southern Netherlands provinces by the French in 1793) and the destruction of the international agreements of 1814 and 1830. The same thesis is developed in the "Walloon's Catechism", widely distributed in the same year of 1903."

The Walloon Movement was a left wing movement from its beginning. Started in liberal left societies, it quickly became a rallying cry for a liberal-socialist coalition against the conservatives of the Catholic Party whose power base was in the Flemish-speaking provinces. During the interbellum between World War I and World War II, many of the Christian left joined the Walloon Movement, notably the Abbé Mahieu, an anticlerical Catholic priest. The movement was the focus of several attempts to create left-wing party, for example the Walloon Democratic and Socialist Rally (Rassemblement démocratique et socialiste wallon) created during World War II.

Many Walloon militants consider their movement as an incarnation of the social struggle and a way to fight for the workers' cause.^{[citation needed]}