Analysis of the Tertiary depositional history of the West Alpine Foreland shows that its different basins were governed by essentially synchronous tectonostratigraphic scenarios. The tectono-sedimentary records of the West Alpine Foredeep and Molasse Basin and the Rhône and Massif Central grabens demonstrate successions of tectonic deformation events and so-called Cenozoic Rift and Foredeep (CRF) sequences which correlate to both changes in eustatic sea-level and coeval modification in foreland stress regime. Since correlative successions developed in the North Alpine Foreland, it seems likely that the western and northern Alpine foreland stress fields were repeatedly modified at the same time. Compressional stresses associated with the intermittent tectonic and sedimentary changes in the foreland originated firstly from the Alpine and Pyrenean orogens. In conjunction with the episodic history of the foreland stress regime, the syn-orogenic accumulation of widespread tectono-sedimentary sequences reflects sequential kinematic events in the adjacent mountain chains. The apparent synchroneity of the tectonostratigraphic events in the principal basins of the West Alpine Foreland testifies for a common geodynamic cause for the occurrence of correlative series of widespread tectonic phases and CRF subdivisions.