This paper aims to demonstrate that Early Carboniferous rocks from different parts of the Variscan belt display the same set of directions and reveal a common paleomagnetic history. The mechanisms responsible for acquisition of the different directions, overprinting and geotectonics, must have been the same. Attempt is made to decipher the common paleomagnetic record of the central part of the Variscan belt in the light of results from the southern Vosges.