In order to unify the country, the French Republic fought against every language. Alsatian was forbidden in schools, but it was the same for anything outside French.

Of course, if Alsatian had been allowed or supported, more people would speak it as bilinguals, but would it be enough to save it? Thousands of languages are dying, especially those that are spoken in a small geographic area where another language seems economically more useful.

As an example, Romanche is an official language of Switzerland, yet it is disappearing at an alarming rate. Even the Basque language, which is rare in France because of a century of concealment, is not flourishing in Spain. Basque is a official regional language in Spain, and the population that can speak it grows slowly, but now the majority of those who live in the Basque region don't understand its traditional langage. When only 20-30% of the population can speak correctly a language, how long can it survive?