Remaking French Alsace

The end of the First World War triggered the return of Alsace to France, and celebrations in Paris and Alsace marked the region’s ‘homecoming’. Yet return proved trickier than expected, as voices inside and outside the region grappled with the question of how to undo almost fifty years of German rule, and how to make the region French again. These problems proved particularly acute in the areas of citizenship, administration, and laws, which raised the questions of who and what are French? This chapter traces the debates over these areas of life. It suggests that discussions were characterized by mutual misunderstandings and misperceptions, with opinion divided at both the centre and periphery and shaped by forces inside and outside France’s national borders. The result was a multi-cornered struggle, and this chapter suggests that integration must be understood as an ongoing and contested process.