Introduction

Navigations of National Belonging: Legal Reintegration after the Return of Alsace to France, 1918–39

“…25 During the negotiations at Paris, lively discussions followed French Premier Georges Clemenceau's proposal for the creation of a neutral buffer state in the German Rhineland, but the question of Alsace's future status received limited attention. 26 The French government presented support for Alsace's return as unanimous in order to justify the return to its international allies, while offering some recompense for France's wartime sacrifices to the French population. Yet from the moment the French troops crossed the Vosges mountain range into Alsace, it became clear that they were not in the region of the pre-1918 French national imagination.…”