Demography and pronatalism in France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

The fear of population decline in France is deep-rooted and complex. With a renewed decline in fertility in the 1970s, 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.