The Case of Alsace: A Quest for Identity

"We have criticised the artificial drawing of borders in the young African states enough not to repeat the same mistakes on the soil of old Europe."

From The European Conservative

By Hélène de Lauzun, PhD

Thinking in terms of functional regions with which no one identifies simply doesn’t work: Europe would do well to give this some thought.

French MPs have just voted to remove the two Alsatian departments from the Grand Est administrative region, into which they had been incorporated since 2015. This seemingly trivial change actually speaks volumes about citizens’ relationship with the administrative structures that govern them. When identity and purpose have deserted them, the edifice threatens to collapse for lack of attachment. The European Union, whose Parliament sits in Strasbourg, the capital of Alsace, would do well to learn from this.

For centuries, the territory of the Kingdom of France was divided into provinces with evocative names, which had taken on almost mythical dimensions throughout history and carried powerful identities. The best-known outside France are Brittany and Provence, but a host of other regions had their own distinctiveness and character: Forez and Saintonge, Guyenne, and the Dauphiné, to name a few. Coats of arms—France boasts one of the richest heraldic heritages in the world—served to imbue these beautiful provinces with colour and symbolism: even today, the mere sight of the Breton ermine or the Occitan cross sets the hearts of millions of French people racing, as they identify with these symbols inherited from the past.

The French Revolution brought down all the intermediary bodies that had structured France, and among them, the provinces. Their institutions were dismantled, their powers denied, their local customs and particularities trampled underfoot. In their place were established the departments, small administrative districts organised on a geographical basis, retaining the boundaries of the former provinces for only a tiny minority of them. Devoid of any autonomy, the departments now existed solely to relay the directives of the central government.

The need to recreate a level of government situated between the all-powerful centralised government in Paris and the departments has been felt on numerous occasions throughout post-revolutionary French history. An initial reform gave rise to the regions in 1972, based on groupings of departments.

But these regions never managed to gain any legitimacy or affection in the hearts of the French people. Deemed too numerous, they were reorganised in 2015 and reduced from 22 to 13. Some regions seem to put up with their cramped and meaningless existence without too much fuss—such as the inhabitants of the region modestly named ‘Centre.’ Others are more rebellious, like Brittany, heir to a duchy that has always asserted its special status—in terms of identity, language, and taxation. At the other end of France, the radiant Provence, constrained within the grotesque construct summed up by the motley acronym ‘PACA’ (Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur), is hardly satisfied with these bureaucratic trappings.

Alsace is a case apart. Three departments—two historically Alsatian and one from Lorraine—were forcibly annexed to the German Empire following France’s defeat in 1871, poisoning international relations right up to the First World War. France’s victory over Germany in 1918 allowed the ‘lost provinces,’ grouped under the name “Alsace-Lorraine,” to return to the French fold. From this painful episode, these territories have retained vivid memories and specific arrangements. For example, these three departments are the only ones where the separation of church and state, decided in 1905, does not apply and where the concordat established by Napoleon Bonaparte continues to endure. Moreover, when the ‘Grand Est’ region was created in 2015, bringing together the historic regions of Alsace and Lorraine under a single umbrella, there was great disappointment among residents deeply attached to their identity and unique history, who felt they were being sidelined in favour of a soulless administrative entity. From that point on, a heated debate ensued over the ‘reform’ of Alsace’s status.

As a result of these demands, on 8 April 2026, French MPs adopted a bill aimed at granting Alsace a special status. In practical terms, this reform would confer upon it the powers of both a department and a region. The aim is to simplify the territorial organisation by merging two administrative levels into one, specifically for Alsace. This development effectively amounts to separating Alsace from the Grand Est region, restoring its capacity for autonomous action. The reform is part of a long-standing demand that enjoys broad local support: several consultations have shown that a strong majority of Alsatians wish to leave the diverse entity that was the Grand Est.

For supporters of the reform, this represents a decisive step towards recognising Alsace’s unique characteristics, both in terms of history and local law, and also due to its cross-border location.

We are only at the beginning of the legislative process, and the reform has not yet been finalised. But if it were to succeed—which is highly likely—such a development would be highly instructive. The new region would be called quite simply… Alsace: clear, simple, effective, full of meaning. 

The message sent is powerful: for over two centuries, the French state has been striving to construct administrative structures that do not work because they do not foster any sense of belonging at the local level. The bureaucratic superstructure, even if functional, can never be an end in itself, for citizens have no desire to work, to engage politically or to settle permanently on a patch of land which they are told is just as good as any other, in a random and interchangeable manner. Pure functionality is a civil servant’s fantasy. We have criticised the artificial drawing of borders in the young African states enough not to repeat the same mistakes on the soil of old Europe. A territory, even one well-conceived in terms of mobility and the sharing of powers by zealous bureaucrats, cannot have a viable existence if it lacks roots and a place in the hearts of its citizens.

In this specific case, Alsace provides an interesting test case. Strasbourg, its capital, is the official seat of the European Parliament. But its inhabitants are sending a clear signal that they have no interest in being integrated into an artificial administrative system but need to rediscover a sense of meaning—historical, religious—in order to ‘live together’: this is a ready-made lesson for European integration, which is obsessed with regulations at the expense of the history and identity of nations.