Project: A study reviewing the two theoretical positions on liaison: the deletion analysis which prevailed in the sixties and the insertion account which emerged in the seventies. It is shown that these two views represent a "thesis" and "antithesis" on the question of French linking. However, a "synthesis," a suppletion approach, is now necessary. The latter incorporates the advantages of both previous accounts but is not burdened with their undesirable consequences. Suppletion, the lexical listing of both the "long" and "short" allomorphs of liaison, does not entail a rule of consonant deletion, which is abstract because it is necessarily accompanied by the positing of "protective schwas," a nasalization rule and underlying h-aspiré. Within this approach, the analyst does not confront the complexity and opacity of rules of consonant insertion. Actually, the insertion and suppletion schemes may be seen as notational variants in that they underline the essential nonphonological and idiosyncratic nature of French liaison.