Area, eastern France.
It is now usually considered to include the present-day French departments of Haut-Rhin, Bas-Rhin, and Moselle. The area was ceded by France to Germany in 1871 after the Franco-Prussian War . It was returned to France after World War I, occupied by the Germans in World War II, then again restored to France. French prewar governmental policies that had clashed with the region's particularism have since been modified. The German dialect known as Alsatian remains the lingua franca, and both French and German are taught in the schools.