In February 1918, a government Comité d'études économiques et administratives relatives a l'Alsace-Lorraine was established as a part of the Conférence d'Alsace-Lorraine, created in Paris in 1915 to plan for the eventual re-annexation of the provinces. The Committee produced an official ‘report on nationality questions’, authored by Alfred Zeil, which addressed the fate of the German minority. While Zeil affirmed that ‘there is no difference of race or origin’ between Alsatians and French nationals, he simultaneously asserted the need to guard vigilantly against a perceived threat of racial contamination in Alsace. Individuals would thus enjoy the privileges of French citizenship only insofar as ‘their quality as Alsatians and Lorrainers of French origin are incontestable, that is to say that their blood remains pure of any addition of German blood’.

ZAHRA, Tara. (2008). The ‘Minority Problem’ and National Classification in the French and Czechoslovak Borderlands. Contemporary European History, 17(2), 137-165. doi:10.1017/S0960777308004359.