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In the 50s that's the Italians who were the "bad" immigrants here 
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More important right now is that in Molenbeek and other towns on the Brussels edge you have descendants of mainly Moroccan guest workers from the 60s and 70s who are still not integrated for various reasons, although they have access to the social security and education system like everyone else, and who are susceptible to radicalization from abroad. Saudi Arabia sponsors radical mosques in Brussels for example.
There were many other groups of immigrants in Belgium, Turkish, Italian, Chinese, who have all integrated, but the Moroccan community for some reason does not, as is also the case in The Netherlands. That's also a country where a public debate is possible, since Theo van Gogh's murder in particular and thanks to people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, but not all European countries are at that stage yet.
This is an important (but ignored by the politics and governments over decades
) problem in Germany, too. Often with North African guys, but not that much as in francophone countries, also often with Lebanese and Turkish blokes. It's in the very most cases also the second and third generation. Of course we have several specific ethnic mafia-structures, too, but usually they are on their own and people, who didn't belong to their ethnic group, don't see anything about that, but "parallel societies" in its orign meaning is mostly applied to those people from the Maghreb and also Turkey.But since the New Year 2016 incidents (at least all perpretrotors were Mahgreb-blokes, many with false Syrian refugee-papers) the wind has strongly changed, either by police and secret services but also by the public opinion and the medias.
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Originally from Germany it seems (I have very distant relative there that made researches)
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From the Northwest from Germany I think and presumably it may be based on potter/pottery maker. The word "Pott" is originally used in that area in te same meaning as "pot" and (ceramic made) jar.
http://www.dict.cc/?s=pott
The second part is true but the language issue in Brussels is there for good reason, it's really a Flemish city that was lost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francization_of_Brussels
Well Brussels is a Brabant city, historically Brabant and Flanders weren't really friends
300 years ago it was not French vs Dutch/Flemish areas: the rich/influential people were often speaking French, and the regular people were speaking a lot of different regional languages.
In Belgium they tried to impose the French language to "join" the country. People speaking Romance languages switched more easily to French (those speaking Walloon, Picard, etc.), those speaking Flemish, Brabantian, Limbourgish, etc. didn't. So they later added the Dutch as second official language.
So in a way those currently speaking French are not those who tried to impose French to the others as only language, they are just those which were "converted" to French unlike the others.
Nowadays the city is officially bilingual but in the end there are not many Flemish-speaking people left living in it (a lot come working in it, though) and it seems that often Flemish people do not like the city. A few years ago the Flemish government tried to give money bonus to Flemish who came living to Brussels, but it didn't work that much it seems.
One thing that may have worked better would be to have the whole country bilingual rather than just Brussels area; ironically that was refused by Wallonia years ago, back when the fears were reversed because Wallonia was more powerful.
Also, if schools were bilingual all kids could learn both languages: that's at that age that languages are learned easily. But each community is afraid of losing things to the other, so they keep separated things that shouldn't be.
Perhaps antp's surname is a reminder of that? Not sure.
(I actually haven't heard it elsewhere.)Originally from Germany it seems (I have very distant relative there that made researches).
My parents met when they were living near Brussels, in Meise (where their parents lived), despite being native French speakers, at that time there were less linguistic problems there...
Often the French-speaking having Dutch-origin names are from when the Wallonia was richer: people moved from the (back then) poor Flanders to the more prosperous regions.