Demography and pronatalism in France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Journal of Historical Geography, 8, 3 (1982) 283-298

Demography and pronatalism in France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Philip E. Ogden and Marie-Monique Huss

The fear of population decline in France is deep-rooted and complex. With a renewed decline in fertility in the 197Os, fresh concern has shown itself in the multiplication of books and comments, fitting into a pronatalist tradition which can be traced back at least one hundred and fifty years. In reviewing these works, and other new works on the history of population ideas in France, this paper emphasizes both the uniqueness of the French demographic case and the continuity of reactions both official and private. It isolates key periods of concern in the years before the First World War, in the 1930s and the late 1970s. It also draws attention to the proliferation of propaganda, four examples of which are re-published here.

For at least the last century and a half, the fear of population decline has been a recurring theme in French social and political history. As early as 1849, Raudot published his De la d&cadence de la France arguing that France’s relative position as a power was declining because of sluggish population growth.[ll Even The Times took up the theme in January 1883: “there are not lacking now Frenchmen who look on this decreasing population as but one among many signs of national degeneracy, and are ready to exclaim hopelessly ‘Finis Galliae’ “.t21 By 1899, Zola had published his pronatalist novel FPcondite’[31 and the trickle of propaganda was turning into a flood. In 1938 an American, J. J. Spengler, produced a thorough review of French population history provocatively entitled France faces depopulation.[41 Latterly, in the 197Os, the strident pronatalist theme has been taken up again with enthusiasm. Giscard d’Estaing, surprisingly to a foreign observer, cited demography as one of France’s four great problems, alongside the economy, Europe and defence, while Michel Deb& a former Prime Minister, continually prophesies doom : “France is suffering from the tragedy of stagnation, inflation and a difficult European future but these tragedies fade into insignificance compared with the decline in the birth-rate: because of a lack of children, France is going to crack up”.t51

The aim of this paper is to emphasize the degree of historical continuity in the process by which “Frenchmen became neurotic about their virility and about their capacity to survive as a great power” .t61 It seeks to show the uniqueness of French demographic history and reactions to it, and to point to the voluminous and repetitious nature of the literature on the subject since the early nineteenth century. It is intended as a background review to research the authors are undertaking on the form, effects and regional diffusion of pronatalist propaganda during the period 1890-1939, examples of which illustrate this paper; and it is also prompted by the appearance during the years 1979-81 of a number of workst71 relating to 0305-7488/82/030283 + 16 $03.00/O 283 o 1982 Academic Press Inc. (London) Ltd.

284 P. E. OGDEN AND M.-M. HUSS

aspects of the French population problem in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The works selected for review here deal with France’s demographic problems and range from the solidly scholarly to the near hysterical. It is recognized of course that France was not alone in Europe in fearing population decline, but she was exceptional in the frequency with which that concern became a national preoccupation. Equally, whilst demographic issues have been at the forefront, it is acknowledged that a range of other social ideas have influenced attitudes towards, for example, birth control, abortion and the securing of social justice for families.[81 It can be no coincidence that the very word demography is a French invention nor that, demographers and demographic historians multiplying without heed to Malthusian pressures, the French population is one of the best researched in the world. Each inflection in the birth rate brings a new crop of comment and publication and one of the most persistent questions has been precisely why it is that “Frenchmen had small families but also deplored them”.lgl

The demographic problem: mytb or reality? The French have consistently frightened themselves with statistics, constructing

elaborate projections of the consequences for the population if a particular level of fertility were to be maintained. As soon as fertility falls below replacement level, there is a rush to calculate the day on which the last Frenchman will be born.tlOl At certain periods at least, the facts have not needed embroidering. The originality of the French predicament and the cause of the deeprooted reaction lie in the early and unprecedented decline in fertility. France gradually lost ground to her Euro- pean neighbours : a population of 28 million in 1800 had grown to only 42 million by 1939 in a European total that had leapt from 146 million to 380 million. France was overtaken by Russia, then by other major states: Germany in 1850, Austria- Hungary in 1880, Britain in 1900 and Italy in 1930. Table 1 shows increases for

TABLE 1 Populations of selected European states 1871 and 1911

German Empire France Austria-Hungary Great Britain Italy Spain

c. 1871 c. 1911 Increase (millions) (millions) (%I

41.1 64.9 57.8 36.1 39.6 9-7 35.8 49.5 38.3 31.8 45.4 42.8 26.8 34.7 29-5 16.0 19.2 20.0

Source: C. Dyer, Population and society in twentieth-century France (London 1978) 5.

states during a period of crucial international rivalry while Table 2 presents statistical evidence for the ever-present fear of population ageing. There are many ways of representing France’s exceptional experience: the population of England and Wales increased by some 25 million in the nineteenth century, compared with France’s 10 million;tlll in other words, if French fertility had been maintained throughout the nineteenth century at a level equal to that of England and Wales, the population of France would have reached 100 million, not 40 million, by 1913.r121 The French began to equate relatively declining numbers with declining

DEMOGRAPHY AND PRONATALISM IN FRANCE 285

TABLE 2 Proportion of French population aged under 20 and 65 or over 1740-1980

Under 20 years (%) 65 years or over (%)

1740 42.1 5.4 1770 41.1 5.6 1800 41-o 5.7 1830 40.6 6.4 1860 35.8 6.7 1890 35.0 8.3 1920 31.3 9.2 1950 30-l 11.4 1980 30.5 13.8

Source: J. N. Biraben and J. Dupbquier, Les berceaux vides de Marianne (Paris 1981) Annexe III.

quality through ageing, increasing external threat, decreasing likelihood of in- novation and vitality at home, and a general weakening of the French race through immigration.

The pace of demographic change was not even: it is important to the argument to assess the narrowing gap between birth and death shown in Fig. 1, for a number of stages in demographic evolution sparked off expressions of pronatalist reactions. The later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were, in fact, a time of growth, despite declining fertility, from 20-21 million in 1740 to 35 million by the census of 1846.r131 Yet from 1851 to 1911 the population grew by a mere 4 million. Mortality at mid-century was still variable. Slight excesses of deaths over births in 1845 and 1855 may be attributed to the Crimean War, a cholera epidemic and a bad harvest; whilst a large excess of deaths in 1870-71 occurred during the Franco- Prussian War but mortality was generally in continuous decline from the 1890s onwards. The effect that this would otherwise have had on stimulating population growth was offset by a progressive decline in the crude birth rate from 26*2x, in 1876 to lS*S%, by 1911-13. For twenty years before the First World War every

%O

Figure 1. Crude birth-rate and crude death-rate in France 1800-1980.


census and estimate gave rise to renewed concern: while the German empire grew by an average of 600,000 per annum between 1872 and 1911, France increased by a mere 89,700 per annum. The incidence of natural decrease did much to influence opinion. 1891-95 was the first quinquennial period since the start of the century when deaths exceeded births: 1890, 1891, 1892, 1895, 1900, 1907 and 1911 were all deficit years.

Parallel with this declining fertility, and equally influential on opinion, was the geographical shift in population distribution. At a time when national com- mentators were bewailing France’s poor performance, an unprecedented rural exodus to the cities gave much local evidence to support the idea of depopulation and added weight to the notion that society was being rent asunder by the in- satiable demands of a modernizing economy for labour.

After the traumatic interruption of the First World War in which more than 1.4 million died, an improvement in the natural balance soon gave way to renewed crisis. French nationalists, driven to hypersensitivity by the toll of the war and the rise of fascism in Europe, noted with panic the onset of natural decrease again during the 1930s. The birth rate fell from 21*5x,, in 1920 to 14*8x, in 1939 and deaths exceeded births in every year from 193545. Economic crisis accentuated the long-term trend of declining fertility as it did in other European countries. Old fears were rekindled by a rise in the number of foreigners from 1.1 million in 1911 to 3 million in 1930, immigration accounting for 75 % of natural increase between 1921 and 1930.

No one anticipated, least of all it seems those most directly concerned, the demographic somersault that France was to perform after the war. Indeed, an upturn in the birth-rate began as early as 1942 and it was many a distinguished demographer’s misfortune to publish projections for European countries based on an experience soon to be wholly contradicted. Thus, Notestein et u~.[‘~I projected a population for France of 40.3 million in 1950, falling to 38-l million in 1970. In fact, there were 16,700,OOO births between 1945 and 1965 and the population rose to 48.9 million in 1965 and 50.8 million by 1970. The chief cause may again be found in fertility changes (Fig. l), the birth-rate remaining above 17x0 until 1964, with a slight decline to 1972. Population increase in the postwar years has been greater than that in the preceding century and a half. This was sufficient to still even the French demographic neurosis until that is, in 1971, births again began slowly and then precipitately to decline. The number of births per annum fell by 160,000 between 1971 and 1976 and, despite recent stabilization, the birth-rate in 1980 at 14-8x, was back to the level of 1939. Although less severe[151 than in the United Kingdom or Germany this, as we shall see, has provoked a new surge of pronatalist feeling: the psychological effect of the fall in the period fertility rate below replacement level since 1973 on a nation which had, however belatedly, accustomed itself to the idea of growth, was remarkable. The post-war boom began suddenly to look like a mere temporary upturn in an otherwise inexorably downward trend (Fig. 1).

From internal Malthusianism to external pronatalism 1840-1914 The nineteenth century was a formative period for French ideas on population

but it was not without its precursors. Spengler has reminded us of a tradition that stretches back several centuries, to the fourteenth and fifteenth, for example, when measures were taken to promote marriage and immigration or to the seventeenth


century when Colbert tried to stimulate population growth by forbidding emigration, recruiting immigrants, introducing tax exemptions and pensions and encouraging growth in the colonies by sending “many boatloads of girls to the colonies and (requiring) the colonial soldiers to marry them”. Equally, in the later eighteenth century and the Revolutionary period, those who feared depopulation advocated measures discriminating against celibates, ranging from requiring them to wear “ridicule-inspiring costumes”, paying double taxes, being denied the right to hold public office and in the year IV a petition to the Convention demanding that celibacy be made a capital crime.[161 Direct legislation did not generally result from these proposals and, where it did, the effect on fertility is generally considered to be limited.

Two mainstreams of thought on population characterized the nineteenth century: Malthusianism and a growing pronatalism. They have been deftly an- alysed in recent works by Ronsin and Charbit,[l’l the latter showing the transition of ideas amongst the Economistes in the period 1840-70, the former showing the way in which the conflict between neo-Malthusians and the increasingly avid repopuluteurs manifested itself between 1890-1914. It is certainly the case that fears of underpopulation were less evident in the first half of the nineteenth century than at most periods immediately before or since. Malthus and his works had a pro- found influencetl*l but Charbit shows how the gradual pressure of external events from the 1860s coupled with growing uneasiness about population trends, marked a turning point in attitudes: so long as the preoccupation was with internal matters, Malthusian views prevailed, but as emphasis shifted to national prestige and rivalry, “populationist” views took over. Noting also the contrast between laissez- faire ideas and political control, he summarizes the transition thus: “Malthusian- isme-laissez-faire-preoccupations interieures d’une part, populationisme- interventionisme-nationalisme de l’autre”.[lgl The way in which this transition took place is full of interest. In his excellent book, Charbit analyses the attitudes of the Economistes, an organized group of free-traders who shared the same economic principles and sought to disseminate them “par le biais de societes savantes, d’une presse organisee et par l’enseignement”. They gathered around the SociPte’ d’Economie Politique and included such figures as Frederic Bastiat, Michel Chevalier, Charles Dunoyer, Guy du Puynode, Leonce de Lavergnet201 and Henri Baudrillart who succeeded Chevalier as editor of the influential Journal des Economistes. Alongside the Economistes at mid-century, two other main groups may be identified: the catholiques sociuux who gathered around Frederic Le Play and the “utopian” socialists, Proudhon, Fourier and others. Those who gathered around Le Play found influence through the Soci&e’ d’Economie Sociale and the journal La Ri’orme Sociale and their conservative, pronatalist views were important during the Second Empire and beyond.r211

Before the 1848 Revolution, Charbit shows that the Economistes were largely Malthusian in their ideas, content to argue that any slowness in population growth could be seen as a sign of sensible adjustment of fertility in a modernizing society, a view aided by general prosperity in the 1850s. A typical comment was that by Legoyt in 1857: “La France, par une situation privilegiee, r&unit un peu les avantages des deux modes d’enrichissement: d’une part, son revenu s’agrandit, de l’autre, elle tend a reduire ses depenses, en limitant dans une sage mesure les charges de la feconditC”.r221 By the end of the 186Os, Malthusianism had given way among the Economistes to a wave of nationalistic pronatalism which came to dominate French thinking on population up to 1914 and beyond. This was not a


simple reaction to population trends: population growth was slowing through fertility decline but the response to the 1866 census was quite disproportionate compared with the reaction in 1856. Not for the first, or last, time discussions of population decline and depopulation were not wholly substantiated by the facts. Rather, gathering international and internal pressures gave the demographic issue heightened relevance.

The defeat of Austria by Prussia on 3rd July 1866 “concretisa brutalement ces inquietudes: aux portes de la France une grande nation scientifique et militaire venait de naitre, qui par un jeu d’alliances se constituait en une puissante con- federation, fermement dominee par la Prusse”. [231 The defeat of France in 1870 put the direct relationship between demographic growth and military recruitment, “la chair a canon”, into the front line of social comment. Equally, the sight of the rapidly expanding British empire forced the French to examine their own colonial role, particularly in Algeria. It was recognized, by Bertillon for example, that emigration might be a drain on the home population but others like Leroy- Beaulieu considered that “si l’on Ctait sQr, notamment dans les departements mediterraneens, de trouver en AlgCrie des terres libres pour les jeunes laboureurs, cette seule perspective suffirait pour rendre des mariages plus feconds et augmenter la fecondite des familles”.t241 Concern was also expressed about the decline of French cultural influence in the world, particularly in terms of language, if the number of Frenchmen decreased; about the weakening effect internally of the already considerable recourse to immigration; and rural depopulation, although the product of quite a different set of economic circumstances, was taken as indicative of the internal effects of declining fertility.[251

The last decades of the century were marked by a huge advance in pronatalist sentiments, although the move towards any government control or policy was very slow. Charbit[261 has indicated that the multiplication of articles, books and pamphlets was extraordinary. Journals such as La Rkforme Sociale, Le Journal des Economistes, Revue d’Economie Politique published numerous reviews of the problem, reporting discussions in bodies as diverse as the Acadtkie de MPdecine and the Acadimie des Sciences morales etpolitiques. The history of this movement, particularly the origins and effects of the wave of propaganda issued before 1914 and, indeed, between the Wars is largely unwritten. There was certainly a flood of publications: a cursory glance at the Catalogue of the Bibliotheque Nationale for the period 1894-1918 produced no fewer than forty-eight books and pamphlets under the heading “natalite”,[271 ranging from Arsene Dumont’s Natalite’ et democratic (1898) and De l’inf&ondite’ (1900) to F. A. Vuillermet’s La mobilisation des berceaux, rej?exions d’un chasseur alpin (1917). One particularly interesting aspect of propaganda is the production of pronatalist postcards (Figs 2-4), many of which were strongly linked to the demands of war on population.r281

Pronatalist exhortations came from many different directions. The Catholic church of course was strongly pronatalist[2g1 but one of the more unusual sources was Zola’s novel, F&condit&, published in 1899, the first of the Quatre Evangiles. It very much reflected ‘Yes preoccupations et les aspirations d’un auteur et d’une epoque, a un moment historique oti les ecrivains surtout avaient l’impression de traverser une crise intellectuelle et sociale”. The didactic intent of the novel out- weighs for some readers its “insuffisances artistiques”.[301 Perhaps more direct in their influence were the many organizations and associations which sprang up from the 1890s whose history would certainly repay further research. The Alliance Nationale pour l’accroissement de la population franGuise was set up in 1896 under


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the presidency of Jacques Bertillon and from 1899 issued a quarterly Bulletin. Its first issues reveal the way in which the ideas of the Alliance were taken up in the regions, by the Famille Montpelleraine for example, for fathers of five children or more; or the Fondation Bercier (Yonne et C8te d’Or) which offered “deux prix . . . en faveur des femmes les plus pauvres, les plus fecondes et les plus devouees a l’agriculture”. The first recipients were Mme Go&r-e, and Mme Bacquiat who had produced twenty and fourteen children, respectively. In the Drome departement, the Conseil General decided that on the 14th July each year a diploma and 125 francs would be awarded to the two poorest, most numerous families in the area.f311 Other family associations set up before the War included the Ligue populaire des families nombreuses in 1908, the Association des fonctionnaires p&es de famille in 1911, the Association catholique des chefs de famille in 1908 and the Ligue pour la vie in 1914.r321 Ronsin has commented that “la fievre repopulatrice frole parfois la demence”. In 1914, a M. Brunier left 200,000 francs to the Touring Club de France to provide an annual prize to a French mother who had given birth to seven children at a location over 1,000 m above sea level. [331

Spengler has reminded us that by 1922, the organized pronatalist lobby included, in addition to the Alliance, eight national associations, sixty-two regional associations and eleven federations of large families.r341 Preliminary researches by the present authors indicate a large body of regional archival material whose in- vestigation should do much to enlarge our understanding of the process of diffusion of the pronatalist view in the provinces, the origin of finance, the identity of the local activists and their motives. The regional associations span a long time- period: it is only relatively recently that regional outposts of the Alliance in Lyon, Tourcoing, Nantes and other towns were wound UP.[~~]

While the fall in the birth rate produced both a natural decrease in several years in the 1890s and a rather unnatural increase in the quantity and feverish tone of propaganda, it should not mask the fact that a considerable undercurrent of neo- Malthusianism persisted. Ronsin shows how strong was the opposition of some groups to the pronatalist tide. Two major figures in the movement were Paul Robin who in 1896 launched the Ligue de la Regeneration Humaine and Eugene Hum- bert.[361 The new-Malthusians’ tendency to draw support from anarchist and revolutionary groups meant that they were more active and strident at the end of the century than their rather vague, passive Malthusian predecessors in the first decades of the century. Regardless of what Malthus had actually said, they took the issues of contraception and abortion as central pillars in their argument. A key theme was that restrained population growth would deprive capitalism “des esclaves et des soldats dont il a besoin pour survivre”r3’l and insistence on population issues distanced them from much left-wing opinion which, with Proudhon and Marx, put the fight against economic exploitation as the central issue. Ronsin reminds us that the climate for radical causes was right in the years following the failure of the Commune but, like so many radicals, the neo-Mal- thusians were dogged by lack of organization, by internal conflicts and by well- organized opposition, not least from the law. The flavour of the movement can be well gauged from its sporadic publications, ReggPneration, Generation consciente, Le Malthusien or R&ovation and from the tone of its arguments. For example, from the Federation des Groupes ouvriers n&o-malthusiens founded in 1908 comes the following extract from a poster distributed widely in Paris:

“Toutes les personnes de bonne foi seront avec nous contre les tartuffes bourgeois, contre les veritables malfaiteurs publics, qui, en realite, ne veulent de


nombreuses naissances chez les travailleurs que pour assouvir leurs passions degoutantes, pour entretenir l’armee du chomage et avilir les salaires, pour avoir des soldats destines a defendre leurs coffres-forts contre les ennemis de l’interieur et de l’exterieur, c’est a dire Qtre pourvus de chair a plaisir, de chair a travail et de chair a canon.“[381

Ronsin delves deeply into the methods and personalities of the movement: Paul Robin saw “culture physique” and neo-Malthusianism strongly linked, and was against both alcohol and tobacco. Both he and Humbert were nudists.[3s1 Gustave Gauvin saw the cinema as a useful social tool: his cinkma social toured France with its message of “propagande revolutionnaire ou le neo-Malthusianisme cotoie le syndicalisme, le pacifisme, et l’anti-alcoolisme”.r401 Propaganda was published in the form of leaflets, posters and postcards whose message was as direct as the pronatalist publications illustrated here. It is hardly surprising, given their increasingly anti-military, anti-establishment, pro-sexual liberty stance, that the neo-Malthusians met the stiffest opposition. Ronsin shows how the law was used against them, culminating in the 1920 Act which effectively outlawed neo- Malthusians, by making abortion and the sale and distribution of, or instruction about, female contraceptive methods illegal. Against a few parliamentary libertar- ians like Vincent Auriol or Leon Blum, this law was supported by the great mass of reactionary, nationalist, pronatalist members, like Aristide Briande, Edouard Daladier, Leon Daudet and Robert Schumann.t411

The apogee of pronatalism

Two aspects of the population issue stand out as remarkable in the years up to the First World War: first, despite the feverish activity on both sides neither had a great deal of effect on the actual level of fertility; second, no clear elements of a population policy emerged. The years between the wars saw a reversal of at least the second of these, for the 1930s saw a decline in the birth-rate to the lowest point yet recorded in peacetime in many west European countries. Fertility decline became an issue at the centre of the political stage and the period saw an acceleration of propaganda and of dire warnings of national extinction. Boverat, one of the most rampant of the pronatalists, published tract after tract with titles like Le massacre des innocents on abortion and La crise des naissances: ses con- skquences tragiques et ses remzdes. [421 From this latter comes both the delightful cover illustrated in Fig. 5 and population projections for the period 1932 to 1980: that births would fall from 730,000 in 193 1 (and from 1,034,OOO in 1868) to 450,000 in 1940,386,OOO in 1960, 326,000 in 1970 and 298,000 in 1980. This would amount to a decline in population from 41 million in 1931 to 29 million by 1980.r431 A great deal of faith seemed to be placed in propaganda: 2 million copies of a poster produced by the Alliance were issued and many of the pamphlets were heavily illustrated. Boverat’s 1932 booklet, for example, contained caricatured portraits of the German threat but also of Japan and Italy. It drew attention both to the relative sizes of population and of armies and the age-structure of the population. The ideal was a three-child family, well-housed and fed. The propaganda battle extended into the regions. For example, to celebrate the Journ&e des m&es de famille nombreuse on 9th May 1920 and subsequently, the ComitP national des j&es de families nombreuses in the Boulevard St Germain issued detailed in- structions to mayors in the Indre departement on the numbers of posters, flags, badges and medals required for an average sized town. Thus a town of 10,000


would be likely to consume 1,500 cardboard badges, 1,000 small flags, 800 metal badges, 100 medals, 100 postcards and 20 posters.[**l

The French were aware that during the 1930s the population problem had taken on a European dimension, but they were not consoled. By the late 193Os, Britain was also experiencing a period of very low birth-ratest451 but it was the new population policies of the fascist states that began to command attention. Winter has pointed out that one factor underlying the near-hysterical fear of population decline in some states was the wider dissemination of genetic theories which “helped transform discussions of population growth into arguments about the perceived decline of the inherent qualities of elites, nations or races”.[461 The French had long been aware both of the impact of slow growth on the role of French language and culture in the world and of the effects of immigration on the racial purity of the home population. Even some external observers saw the demographic problem as the reason for “the paralysis of French initiative” and for “the chronic de- pression from which she is suffering”. [*‘I Equally, others saw France’s defeat in 1940 as the culmination of a process of demographic decay which produced an ageing, ineffective population magnifying the problem of the generation of elites lost in the battlefields of the First World War.[481 Fascist pronatalism, then, found its supporters in France in the 1930s. Some saw Hitler as a model: “Quand entendrons-nous un president du conseil francais affirmer la necessite d’une politique familiale aussi Cnergiquement que le chancelier Hitler, et mettre, comme lui, ses actes d’accord avec ses paroles ?” They lavished similar praise on “le Duce, toujours si averti des phenomenes dCmographiques”.r4s1 Yet Winter has noted that there was a remarkable unanimity in demographic concern over the political spectrum : “this sort of negative eugenics was repugnant to men and women of the left, who were prepared, nonetheless, to argue that aggregate population growth had to be kept up in order to assure the future of social democ- racy in Europe”.[501

The development of family policies was slow. Before 1914 the main impetus came in the form of family allowances paid usually not by the state but by private companies, in addition to prizes and awards from private foundations, repressive measures against contraception and abortion culminating in the 1920 law, and measures to reduce infant mortality.t511 After the war considerable progress was made in developing the “family wage system” which dates back at least to 1854 when L. Harmel, a disciple of Le Play, established a fund in his factory to supplement incomes of workers with large families.r521 The system was finally made compulsory in 1932 in response to continuous pressure from pronatalist organizations, who by now held an annual Congr& de la natalitk, the first held in Nancy in 1919, the second in Rouen in 1920, the third in Bordeaux in 1921 and so on. Demands ranged beyond simple family allowances to include changes in taxation, in the laws of inheritance and the idea of a family vote, which would give extra votes to the father, a theme taken up again by Michel DebrC as recently as 1978.r53r While much doubt had been expressed about the efficacy of such measures, and Spengler was certainly scathing in his analysis of their effects,r5*l they were gradually intensified. The Code de la Famille instituted in 1939 was really the first attempt at a comprehensive policy, extending family allowances, reinforcing re- strictive measures on contraception, abortion, censorship and alcoholism, and introducing tax changes favourable to the family.

The culmination of the pronatalist surge, and one that was to change attitudes in the post-war years, came with the Vichy government. Marshal Pttain was in no


doubt of the demographic causes of defeat: “Trop peu d’enfants, trop peu d’armes, trop peu d’allies, voila les causes de notre dCfaite”.t551 The Vichy government became particularly associated with direct intervention in family life and fertility. Abortionists became subject to the death penalty and one was actually executed in 1943. Governments since the Liberation have been careful to couch their pronatalist arguments in terms which recall as little as possible the Vichy ap- proach.

Demographic miracle? The massive turn-round in France’s demographic fortunes from the early 1940s

onwards led to a complete change of tone in the debate on population. While it is true that, even with a rapidly rising birth-rate, De Gaulle went on encouraging population growth and that France still had to turn towards immigration to supplement her workforce,[561 the frenetic aspects of pronatalism were rather sub- dued during the 1950s and 1960s. Whether the policies of the 1930s had in fact contributed to this demographic renaissance is open to debate, although Calot and Hecht have recently suggested that fertility increased most among the socio- professional categories which benefited most from the legislative changes made in 1939 and that the general effect of legislation-hazardous to estimate-was perhaps to raise fertility by 10%.t6’l Pronatalist organizations ran out of steam: the AlIiance lost members, private financial support and very nearly its state subsidy. Its staff fell from twenty to two between the 1950s and 1964.[581 With a birth-rate generally over 18x0 during the 1950s and early 1960s and with a population that had increased by ten million since the war, a greater feeling of demographic calm descended on France than had been known for many decades.

It was not to last. The experience of the last ten years in France has been remarkable. The decline in the birth-rate from 1964 and to a greater extent from 1972 and particularly the fall of fertility below replacement level since 1973 has provoked an extraordinary response. Despite the vastly changed circumstances, despite the fact that France’s experience is less grave than that of other European states, despite there being no prospect of absolute decline in numbers before the end of the century, the pronatalist chorus has begun again. Rarely can the force of history be so clearly illustrated: the tone and method of the debaters is strikingly similar to that of fifty or a hundred years ago, and this is well exemplified by the two recent books of Dumont et al. and Biraben and Dupbquier.[5g1 Huss has evoked the broad range of opinion newly interested in the population question, from avid pronatalists to a few “Malthusians” largely amongst the ecologists, but emphasizes that the whole spectrum of opinion on the issue is tipped towards pronatalism. The 1930s idea of “depopulation as a form of unilateral disarmament”[sol has been echoed by Pierre Chaunu, historian and rabid pronatalist: “le nouvel arsenal ‘anticonceptionnel et antinatal’, infiniment plus dangereux que l’armement atomique”.tGIJ The imagery of the language used is sensational: authors such as Chaunu and Dumont invoke the idea of the plague-“la peste blanche”; contraception is “diabolique” and leads to genocide; the desire not to have a child be- comes “le refus de la vie”;[621 the declining birth-rate is a “cancer”; there is a “grande conspiration contre la vie”. Chaunu, lacking the German threat of the 1890s or 193Os, has turned attention to the countries of the Maghreb for com- parison,[6sl a theme taken up by DebrC who remarked that Algeria, with 14 million inhabitants, had more births than France.[641 The whole of Europe is seen to be


suffering from a form of self-inflicted decay, brought about by the rejection of child-rearing, or at least the refusal of a third and fourth child.

Other similarities with the activities of past pronatalists are evident, particularly in the role of propaganda. The publication of La France Rid&e was preceded by the formation of a new group, the APRD, Association pour une renaissance d&no- graphique. Huss shows the extraordinary range of publications carrying articles on the population issue: from Le Monde, with at least 120 articles between 1974 and 1979, and L’Humanite’, to Paris Match and Elle.[651 The most recent work reviewed here by two otherwise serious demographers, Biraben and Dupaquier, is a deliber- ate work of propaganda. They complain, for example, that a year after publication the Sullerot Report on the demographic problemt661 had sold only 3,469 copies and upbraid even the review Population for still not having reviewed the work three years later.c6’1 It is true that both Dumont et al., and Biraben and Dupaquier place recent trends in their historical perspective, and that the latter recog- nize the recent stabilization in the birth-rate. Yet one dare hardly imagine the response if France were to tread the path of West Germany, with a current period fertility rate of 1.4. The French find it barely credible that the Germans or British react with such equanimity to their approaching demographic doom.

Nor should it be inferred that, in coming full circle, the issue is confined to a fringe of opinion. Despite the dissatisfaction expressed by propagandists, the matter is in fact espoused at the highest level. During the late 197Os, the then president Giscard d’Estaing, the socialist leader Francois Mitterrand, and the former Gaullist prime minister, Michel DebrC found little to disagree about on the population issue.rGsl On the 22nd January 1981, Madame Anne-Aymone Giscard d’Estaing presented the Prix Charles Baron-Alliance Nationale contre la dt;population, five prizes of 10,000 francs each to large families. She remarked that “La defense de la famille est le premier et le plus beau des combats”.[6g1 In coming to power in 1981, the new president immediately raised family allowances by 25 %. Mitterrand, in 1976, might well have been speaking half a century or a century ago: “M. DebrC is right to state that a pronatalist policy must be one of the prime features of any government’s programme. What indeed will remain of the Plans if there are fewer Frenchmen in 1980 than in 1976, and if the tendency to decline continues until 1985, or still more if it goes on until 1990 or the end of the century? . . . No social policy or economic policy will be possible any longer . . . France’s independence and impact on the world stage will also be a thing of the past . . .“.[70,711

Department of Geography, Queen Mary College, London

Notes

[l] C. M. Raudot, De la dkadence de la France (Paris 1849); for comment see T. Zeldin France 1848-1945, intelIect, taste and anxiety II (Oxford 1977) 952

[2] The Times (16 January 1883) [3] D. Baguley, F&ondit& d’Emile Zola (Toronto 1973) 5 [4] J. J. Spengler, France faces depopulation: postlude edition 1936-1976 (Durham N.C. 1979,

original edition 1938) [5] Le Monde (21 March 1979) [6] Zeldin, op. cit. 948 [7] Y. Charbit, Du Malthusianisme aupopulationnisme: les Economistes francais et lapopulation


1840-1870 Travaux et Documents INED, Cahier 90 (Paris 1981); F. Ronsin, La greoe des ventres: propagande neo-Malthusienne et baisse de la natalite’ francaise XIX-XXe siecles (Paris 1980); J. J. Spengler, op. cit.; J. M. Winter, The fear of population decline in western Europe 1870-1940, in R. W. Hiorns (Ed.), Demographic patterns in developed societies (London 1980); G. F. Dumont et al., La France rid&e: echapper d la logique du declin (Paris 1979); M-M. Huss, Demography, public opinion andpolitics in France 1974-80 Occasional Paper 16 (Department of Geography, Queen Mary College, University of London 1980); J. N. Biraben and J. Dupaquier, Les berceaux vides de Marianne: l’avenir de la population francaise (Paris 1981)

[8] J. Bourgeois-Pichat, France, in B. Berelson (Ed.), Population policy in developed societies (New York 1974) 545

[9] Zeldin, op. cit. 948 [lo] See, for example, L’lllustration (26 January 1929) quoted in C. Dyer, Population andsociety

in twentieth-century France (London 1978) 78 [ll] P. Aries, Histoire des populations francaises et de leurs attitudes devant la vie depuis le

XFZZZe siecle (Paris 1971) 201-40 [12] P. Paillat and J. Houdaille, Legislation directly or indirectly affecting fertility in France, in

M. Kirk, M. Livi-Bacci and E. Szabady (Eds), Law andfertility in Europe (Dolhain 1975) 240 [13] Y. Charbit, Le passe demographique, in La France et sa population aujourd’hui (Paris

1978) 6 [14] F. W. Notestein, I. B. Taeuber, D. Kirk, A. J. Coale and L. K. Kiger, The futurepopulation

of Europe and the Soviet Union, population projections 1940-1970 (London 1946) 56 [IS] Indeed, even if present trends were to continue in France, the population would grow to

56 million by the year 2000 and then go into decline only from 2005 [16] Spengler, op. cit. chapters V, X, 219, 222, 223; J. J. Spengler, French population theory

since 1800 Journal of Political Economy 44 (1936) 577-611, 743-66; J. J. Spengler, French predecessors of Malthus: a study of eighteenth century wage andpopulation theory (Durham N.C. 1942); J. J. Spengler, Economic et population, Les doctrines francakes avant I800. De Bude d Condorcet INED, Cahier 21 (Paris 1954)

[17] Ronsin, op. cit.; Charbit (1981) op. cit.; Y. Charbit, Les fondements ideologiques des politiques demographiques en France 1850-1900 Communication au VZe Collogue National de Demographic (Lille, April 1979) typescript

1181 The extent of this influence was reinforced by a conference held in Paris in May 1980, reported in P. E. Ogden, Malthus yesterday and today Journal of Historical Geography 7 (1981) 91-93. For other recent comment on Malthus and France, see D. B. Grigg, Popula- tion growth and agrarian change, an historical perspective (Cambridge 1980) chapters 9 and 14

[19] Charbit (1979) op. cit. 31 [20] For one of the few individuals portrayed in detail before the appearance of Charbit’s book

see A. Armengaud, Leonce de Lavergne ou un malthusien populationniste Annales de demographic historique 5 (1968) 29-36

[21] For an illuminating discussion of Le Play see Zeldin, op. cit. 953-9 [22] A. Legoyt, Journal des Economistes 5 (1857) 362-3, quoted in Charbit (1979) op. cit. 8 [23] Charbit (1981) op. cit. 219 [24] P. Leroy Beaulieu, L’Economistefrancais (22 August 1874) 212-3, quoted in Charbit (1979)

op. cit. 17 [25] For a full discussion see Spengler (1979) op. cit. chapter V [26] Charbit (1979) op. cit. 8 [27] B. N. Catalogue, 18941925, “Natalit? [28] One of the authors, Marie-Monique Huss, is preparing a Ph.D. thesis on pronatalism from

1914-39 and has a large personal collection of postcards from which some of the illustra- tions in this article are taken

[29] “Dieu de bonte, ayez pitie de nous . . . sauvez votre peuple de la folie et du crime d’un suicide national.” So ran a prayer approved by the Catholic hierarchy and published in 1913, see Ronsin (1980) op. cit. 132

[30] Baguley, op. cit. chapters 2 and 3 show skilfully the influence on Zola of Malthusian and pronatalist thinking in nineteenth-century France

[31] Bulletin de l’dlhance Nationale pour Z’accroissement de la poptdation francaise NO. 3 (15 July 1899) 35-8

[32] Huss, op. cit. 5


[33] Ronsin, op. cit. 129 [34] Spengler (1979) op. cit. 128. An indication of the relative role of propaganda in the activities

of the Alliance is given by Ronsin, op. cit. 13 1: in 1913, it spent 3 1,450 francs on propaganda against 2,781 francs on assistance for large families. Further comments on the early history of the Alliance may be found in R. Talmy Histoire du mouvement familial en France 1896- 1939 (Aubenas 1962)

[35] We are grateful to Mme Gistle Bourquin and her staff of the Alliance for access to archives which, with other material, will form the basis of a further paper by Philip Ogden on the early historical geography of pronatalism

[36] See Jeanne Humbert, Eugene Humbert: la vie et l’oeuvre d’un neomalthusien (Paris 1947) [37] L’aventure demographique en France au XIXe siecle La Documentation FranCaise No. 6026

(Paris, December 1976) 10 [38] Ronsin, op. cit. 96 [40] Ibid. 96 [41] Ibid. chapter XIII. It also treats the reactions of women (chapter XV) and of the working

classes (chapter XVI) [42] F. Boverat Le massacre des innocents (Paris 1939); idem, La crise des naissances: ses con-

sequences tragiques et ses rembdes (Paris 1932) [43] Boverat (1932) op. cit. supplement, page 9 bis. Projections based on Alfred Sauvy’s figures

for the fertility of women in the Seine departement in 1930. The number of births in 1980 was 795,000, in a total population of 538 million

[44] Archives departementales de l’Indre, Chateauroux, 4 M 175 [45] One of the most authoritative statements on European populations in the 1930s remains

D. V. Glass, Population policies and movements in Europe (Oxford 1940, reprinted London 1967)

[46] Winter, op. cit. 173 [47] Quoted from The Times correspondent in Paris in 1939 by Winter, op. cit. 180 [48] M. Deb& and A. Sauvy, Des francais pour la France. Le probleme de la population (Paris

1946) quoted in Winter, op. cit. 180 [49] Ronsin, op. cit. 200, 207 [50] Winter, op. cit. 189 [51] The practice of sending children out to nourrices or wet-nurses caused especial alarm; the

children died, some 100,000 or so a year in the 186Os, “at rates which suggested mass extermination”, Zeldin, op. cit. 969

[521 Spengler (1979) op. cit. 240-l ; also D. V. Glass, The struggle for population (Oxford 1936) [53] Huss, op. cit. 6-7 [54] Spengler (1979) op. cit. 2545 [55] Marshal Petain, 20 June 1940, quoted in C. Dyer, Population and society in twentieth-

century France (London 1978) 87 [56] For a summary of the debate surrounding immigration see P. E. Ogden, Foreigners in Paris :

residential segregation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. OccasionalPaper 11 (Queen Mary College, University of London 1977); G. Tapinos, L’immigration &rang&e en France, 1946-1973 INED, Cahier 71 (Paris 1975)

[57] G. Calot and J. Hecht, The control of fertility trends, in Council of Europe, Population decline in Europe (London 1978) 191-2; Institut National d’Etudes Demographiques, Natalite’ et politique demographique Cahier 76 (Paris 1976)

[58] Huss, op. cit. 8 [59] Biraben and Dupaquier, op. cit.; Dumont et al., op. cit. [60] Winter, op. cit. 175 [61] P. Chaunu, Un phenomene sans precedent dans l’histoire, in Dumont et al., op. cit. 123 [62] “L’Europe a un cancer, et ce cancer, c’est le refus de la vie”, the first lines of G. F. Dumont

et al., op. cit. 11 and the title of P. Chaunu, Le refus de la vie (Paris 1975) [63] Huss, op. cit. 28-9 cites detailed references [64] Michel DebrC for a pronatalist French family policy Population and Development Review

5 (1979) 379 [65] Huss, op. cit. Appendix, 87-9 [66] Conseil Economique et Social, La demographic de la France, bilan et perspectives, rapport

present& par Evelyne Sullerot (Paris 1978) [67] Biraben and Dupbquier, op. cit. 11 [68] Comments by the presidential candidates on the current programme of the Alliance


Nationale contre la Dkpopulation are contained in their journal Population et Avenir No. 553 (mars-avril 1981) 1329-32

[69] Population et Avenir No. 552 (Jan-Fev. 1981) 1307-8 [70] From the Parliamentary debate on the Seventh Plan, quoted in J. Murray, Population

policies in Europe, paper presented to the Population Geography Group Conference, Institute of British Geographers, Durham, 1979, mimeo, 9

[71] The authors are most grateful to Ray Hall and Roger Lee for comments on an earlier draft of this paper

Notes on contributors

Gillian Barrett was awarded a Ph.D. for research on Irish settlement at Queens Univer- sity Belfast. She is at present a senior lecturer in geography at Wolverhampton Poly- technic

Alan G. Brunger graduated from the University of Southampton and gained his doctorate at the University of Western Ontario. He presently teaches geography at Trent Univer- sity, Peterborough, Ontario. His research interest is the immigration and settlement process in nineteenth-century British North America

John Chapman is a senior lecturer in geography at Portsmouth Polytechnic. He gained his doctorate at University College London for a study of agricultural change in Mon- mouthshire

Trevor Harris is a research associate in geography at Portsmouth Polytechnic. He is currently making a historical-geographical study of dockyard towns

Della Hooke received her doctorate from the University of Birmingham in 1980 and is a honorary research fellow in geography at the University of Birmingham. She is ex- amining evidence for the landscape of Anglo-Saxon England and the relationship between this and the territorial organization of the period. She also lectures and researches in field archaeology

Marie-Monique Huss is a lecturer in French at the Hatfield Polytechnic. She graduated from the University of Paris-Sorbonne and is currently preparing a Ph.D. at Queen Mary College, London, on pronatalism in France since the First World War

Philip E. Ogden is a lecturer in geography at Queen Mary College, London. His current research interests focus on demographic change and migration in nineteenth- and twentieth-century France