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France/Germany: Alsace

January 14, 2013

The Alsace region is defined by two of Europe's dominant cultures - the French and the Germans. But the ability to speak German is no longer taken for granted among the people of the region.

Klein-Venedig im Elsass: Blick auf alte, verwinkelte Fachwerkhäuser an einem kleinen Kanal in der oberelsässischen Stadt Colmar. Colmar hat eine Kanalverbindung zum Rhein-Rhone-Kanal. Aufnahme vom 8.8.2000.
Image: picture-alliance / dpa

The once typical bilingualism in Alsace is a thing of the past - young people, especially those from big cities, only speak French. Since the early 1990s, thousands of jobs were lost in neighboring Germany and Switzerland, as well as in Alsace itself - especially jobs that required both languages. It’s also a result of official French policy that once set the goal of driving the German language from the region. 

Image: dpa
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