. >> how could they explain to their mothers and wives wha they had seen and posblyven done in russia? they could not. they shut the door on it. they refused to speak about it and forbade their children from even speaking about it, so as to avoid ever again ending up as a french soldier wearing a german uniform fighting another country. >> for decades, the government in paris band alsatian german in schools. over the years, even families stopped speaking it as much. this has put many at a professional disadvantage. claude runs a franco-german business consultancy. he says that a number of innovative companies cannot and no longer expect to find bilingual staff in alsace. >> there are tens of thousands of jobs on the german and swiss border as well as in alsace itself. companies expect people here to eak eelle german, and that means french applicants do not get the jobs because their german is not good enough. >> he sends his children to a bilingual school. he tells them about various stereotypical images of germans and why they came about. >> for now, there's a divide here in alsace.