ABSTRACT
The National State has been seen far too often exclusively as a geographical entity. Citizenship and nationality represent the fundamental tools which define who has the complete right to belong to the National State and who is excluded from it. The ‘ethnic discourse’ linked to the construction and to the character of the National State in Germany hinges on the concept of ‘Volk’, understood as an ethnic entity and not as a union of citizens who do not necessarily have a common origin. Ethnic and national affiliation in French discourse is thus never inescapably invariable but is, on the contrary, always modifiable by way of acculturation processes which favour social integration and assimilation. The chapter aims to stress that the regime of dual affiliation is not uniquely Soviet, but is rather an attempt to combine the German ‘ethnic discourse’ with that of the French.
