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Volume 60 2005/1-2
Restoring the Notion of Family in France
Pronatalist and Pro-family Propaganda in Schools and Army Barracks (1920-1940)
Virginie De Luca [*] Virginie De Luca, Laboratoire Printemps, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines
This article examines the activities of militants advocating the introduction of pronatalist and pro-family education in French schools and army barracks between 1920 and 1940. After the First World War, the main pronatalist association, the Alliance nationale pour l’accroissement de la population française (National Alliance for the Growth of the French Population), undertook to raise awareness among children and young adults about the decline in the birth rate. We examine under what conditions this teaching was initiated, the means used to disseminate the information produced and the consequences of its introduction. We show that this teaching made it possible to introduce population issues and the techniques and tools of demographic analysis into schools. The pronatalist activists thus contributed to the establishment of “literacy in demography”, though their objective was to educate individuals rather than to initiate them to demography and population issues.
Cet article examine l’action des milieux natalistes en faveur de l’introduction d’un enseignement nataliste et familial à l’école et dans les casernes entre 1920 et 1939 en France. En effet, après la première guerre mondiale, la principale association nataliste, l’Alliance nationale pour l’accroissement de la population française, entreprend de sensibiliser les enfants et les jeunes adultes au problème de la dénatalité. Nous examinons les conditions de la création de cet enseignement, les moyens utilisés pour diffuser l’information produite et les conséquences de sa mise en place. Nous montrons que cet enseignement a permis l’introduction des questions de population mais aussi des techniques et des outils de l’analyse démographique à l’école. Les militants natalistes ont ainsi concouru à la mise en place d’une première « alphabétisation à la démographie », même si leur objectif était d’éduquer les individus plutôt que de les initier à la démographie et aux questions de population.
Este artículo analiza la acción de los medios natalistas en pro de la introducción de una educación natalista y familiar en la escuela y en los cuarteles entre 1920 y 1939 en Francia. Después de la primera guerra mundial, la principal asociación natalista francesa, la Alianza nacional para el crecimiento de la población francesa, inició una campaña de sensibilización de los niños y jóvenes sobre el problema de la baja natalidad. En este artículo analizamos las condiciones bajo las que se creó esta educación, los medios que se utilizaron para difundir la información y sus consecuencias. Mostramos cómo tal educación introdujo cuestiones de población así como técnicas y métodos de análisis demográfico en la escuela. Los militantes natalistas contribuyeron a una primera “alfabetización en demografía”, aun cuando su objetivo era el de educar y no necesariamente el de iniciar a la demografía y a las cuestiones de población.
Concern for demographic issues is a well-established French trait. Witness, for example, the interest of today’s French public in annual changes in fertility and mortality levels, which is unique in Europe. This awareness is linked not only to the demographic history of France, characterized by the early onset of the demographic transition, but also to the ideological influence of the pronatalist and pro-family movement which was very active in the interwar period. In this article, Virginie De Luca examines the approach and content of pronatalist and pro-family propaganda between 1920 and 1940 in France. Its methods and goals fall into two categories. On the one hand, the aim is to create a climate favourable to the family and high fertility among school students by introducing elements pertaining to family values in all the disciplines taught. On the other hand, a more technical approach, focusing more on geography and history, aims to present descriptive tools of the population and the nation, such as the age distribution, to students. This first introduction to demography was thus designed to give moral and statistical content to the question.
Article 142 of the law of 29 July 1939, known as the Family Code (Code de la famille), requires that population issues be taught in schools. It states that “the teaching of demographic issues in their statistical aspects and their relation to questions of morals and family is obligatory for all teachers and all students at every level of education and in all public and private educational establishments”. This text was promulgated by the Haut comité de la population (Senior committee for population) created in 1939, which had only a transitory existence before it was abolished by the Vichy government. But the wheels had been set in motion. From 1941 on, under the aegis of the secretary of state for family and health, pamphlets and manuals were produced in growing numbers. However, although the Family Code has been the subject of recent studies (Chauvière, 1992; Chauvière and Bussat, 2000; Rosental, 2003), they only mention the establishment of “the teaching of population problems” and do not discuss its origins. The present article aims to trace the genesis of the introduction of population questions in schools and to understand why this teaching was given a statistical and moral content.
Archives and printed sources provide information on the movements which initiated the organization of this teaching, and reveal the monopoly of one association, the Alliance nationale pour l’accroissement de la population française (National alliance for the growth of the French population), with respect to propaganda activities aimed at promoting “pronatalist and pro-family” teaching. Analysis of the establishment and development of this approach shows that it introduced not only population issues but also methods and tools for demographic analysis into French schools. Its advocates thus helped to initiate “literacy in demography” to quote Léon Gani (1993). It was through this militant strategy that demography was brought into schools and army barracks, and was more widely disseminated to a public of non-specialists. As a result, by the late 1940s, a survey showed that a majority of respondents were able to give an opinion on the French population and mention some of its demographic characteristics (Bresard, 1948; Cibois, 1982). However, close examination of the pronatalists’ project shows that their objective was to inculcate behaviour and to educate individuals rather than to introduce them to demography and population issues. The definition of Paul Haury, one of the main advocates of the pronatalist cause, bears witness to this “pronatalist and pro-family” teaching:
“Its aim is to prepare for an upturn in the birth rate by strengthening the family feeling in young minds; its method consists in invoking demographic facts and their importance on the one hand, and in developing moral and sociological concepts on the other hand, while illuminating their vital role in the development of societies […]. The task before us is to create not so much a new topic of study as a whole new attitude that must penetrate the entire curriculum.” [1]
(Haury, VIIIe Congrès de la natalité [8th natality conference], Paris, 1926)
This teaching was thus a tool to serve the pronatalist ideology. The aim was to convince children and young people to adopt a personal itinerary in keeping with the demographic and moral requirements of the nation — i.e. to get married and have children —, in brief, to embody the model supported by the pronatalists which, as Paul-André Rosental notes, “in its extreme forms, subordinates the logic of the individual to that of the nation” (Rosental, 2003, p. 9). This teaching did not aim to supply the tools necessary for an intellectual process or to introduce a new discipline into schools, but rather to infiltrate all the other disciplines so as to provide an incessant reminder of the advocated cause. Nevertheless, specific tools and notions peculiar to demography (population pyramids, distribution by age and sex, the renewal of generations) came into widespread use as a result (Baccaïni and Gani, 2002).
I. Pronatalist and pro-family activists
From the early 1890s the French population – both its present and its future — became the subject of passionate debate; “depopulation” was discussed among specialists, but also among politicians and in some professional circles (Rollet, 1990; De Luca, 2002). The Alliance nationale pour l’accroissement de la population française created in 1896 by Dr. Jacques Bertillon, ceaselessly fuelled this debate, in which depopulation was examined from both demographic and moral perspectives. The reduction in family size was linked to the “demoralization” of society. The first objective of the Alliance’s administrators was to obtain legislative measures in favour of large families. For this purpose, they organized numerous debates and distributed countless tracts, they wrote questions to Members of Parliament and met with ministers to convince them to implement policies aimed at pushing up the birth rate (Thébaud, 1985). These efforts were continued after the Great War, when other activists such as the fathers of large families, grouped in associations and dubbed the “familiaux”, arrived on the scene in support of family values and high fertility. As a result of their combined actions, these values were defended even more strongly in the interwar period and supporters were mobilized even in remote départements, thanks to the efforts of relay organizations. This meeting of minds was officialized, so to speak, by their joint participation in common projects (advocacy of the family vote, for example) and by their presence on the same platforms, notably during the annual natality conferences and in the Conseil supérieur de la natalité (Senior natality committee) created on 27 January 1920 (De Luca, 2001, 2004b; Le Naour, 2005). The two terms “pronatalist and pro-family” were frequently associated, and even systematically linked wherever teaching was concerned. The Alliance demonstrated to its partners that it was the leader of the movement. The duration of its involvement, and above all its influence, accounted for this privileged position. It was close to political circles through members of parliament who supported its cause; it already had considerable experience in targeting a mass audience via the tracts that it distributed, but also in monitoring the progress achieved. It entrusted the task of establishing a given programme to a specific administrator who then assessed the action taken in the association’s name in the Alliance’s newsletter, the Bulletin de l’Alliance. It proved particularly effective in bringing the issue of depopulation into the public arena. Thus, in the early 1920s, the familiaux relied on the pronatalists to lobby the authorities in favour of “pronatalist and pro-family” teaching
[2].
Any propaganda exercise, requiring perseverance, sustainability, and repetition to be effective, must be well organized and calls for the permanent mobilization of individuals. Within the Alliance, two men, Fernand Boverat and Paul Haury, were the undisputed leaders. The first, a tireless militant, graduate of the École supérieure de Commerce in Paris, and father of four, abandoned the business world to dedicate himself to the pronatalist cause. Endorsed by Jacques Bertillon, he was secretary general from 1913 to December 1937, when he became president of the Alliance until August 1940. Boverat was a member of the Conseil supérieur de la natalité, and was its vice-president in 1931. He wrote most of the association’s tracts, and was a constant contributor to the natality conferences. He was also active on the international scene via the international committee Pour la Vie et la Famille (For life and the family) where he commented on every topic (De Luca, 2004b). The other leader in the propaganda war, Paul Haury, vice-president of the association, was more specialized. He was a history teacher in the post-baccalaureat preparatory classes at the Lycée Concorcet, and attracted notice in 1923 when he won the competition organized by the industrialist André Michelin, an Alliance member, with his manifesto La vie ou la mort de la France (The life or death of France). He concentrated his activities on pronatalist and pro-family education and sometimes ran the Protestant Committee in the natality conferences with Bernard Le Gouis, a member of the Ligue française pour le relèvement de la moralité publique (French league for restoring public morality). The Vichy era provided a springboard for Haury: he was named cabinet director in the secretariat for the family and health. The two men worked in unison.
II. Propaganda aimed at creating a new “climate”
The term propaganda was employed by the Alliance militants themselves when they discussed their education campaign. In this article, the term refers to all the procedures employed to influence and control the opinions or actions of individuals for ideological ends. There are numerous studies of the propaganda techniques used during the twentieth century. They highlight the presuppositions, requirements, and aims of propaganda. They also show that there can be multiple propagandist modes of action. The survey by Jacques Ellul (1990) provides a framework for analysing the activities of the Alliance, whose activists proved extremely effective.
So-called active propaganda seeks to disturb and shock by evoking strong images, such as war and the prospect of defeat for example. It may be contrasted, according to Ellul, with sub-propaganda whose purpose is to “mobilize individuals, i.e. to make them mobile in the etymological sense in order to launch them into action at the appropriate time” (Ellul, 1990). The Alliance carried out both types of activity.
Throughout the period under consideration, certain activities were designed to use current events to “draw attention”. For example, on 10 October 1938, when there was no doubt that war was approaching, Fernand Boverat sent the new six-page tract, “L’axe Rome-Berlin et l’axe Paris-Londres” (“The Rome-Berlin axis and the Paris-London axis”), published by the Natalité (Natality) association, to the head of government. A “highly arresting” document, it demonstrated the disparity in size of the forces that could be mobilized by both sides. It was also sent to Members of Parliament, to 3,000 journalists and writers, and to 10,000 other people, notably from departmental and local branches of the CGT trade union (AN F60607). This type of action can be qualified as propaganda, since it was systematic in character. The Bulletin de l’Alliance mentioned these activities, and the archives of the cabinet of the head of government bear witness to their massive, continuous, and durable nature (AN F60499 and F60606 to 607).
The propaganda intended for children and young people aimed to change their ideas and images of the family, and to provoke a response over the long term. It sought to obtain a spontaneous, mechanical reaction from each person, to create new habits and a new way of looking at the family rather than to prompt a reflection on the “causes of depopulation”. The pronatalist policies which the Alliance wished to see implemented presupposed the existence of a “pro-family climate”. We have found these terms in numerous works published by the association but also in the magazines and pamphlets of large family associations such as Pour la vie (In favour of life) and La plus grande famille (The largest family). In 1920, during the second natality conference, Georges Risler, president of the Musée social (Social museum) established “a programme likely to contribute to the development of the natality” : “What is required above all is the creation of a favourable attitude towards the large family, since family size is primarily a moral issue”.
Apart from the Alliance, less well-known associations were also campaigning for similar goals. In 1932, La France de demain (Tomorrow’s France) was created; its activities consisted in “arousing a positive general attitude towards large families” and creating “a favourable climate” for the repopulation of France (AN F60607). In 1938, the pro-family association Les deux moulins (The two mills), consisting mostly of workers, sent a report of its work to Daladier:
“How do we obtain a pro-family climate? Honouring the family, giving it pride of place, ensuring that large families are no longer synonymous with poverty and that they are no longer materially less well-endowed than childless homes […] would be the best propaganda in favour of the family spirit.”
(AN F60607)
So the Alliance was not alone in advocating the “pro-family climate”, it appeared to be common to all the pro-family movements of the interwar period (Lenoir, 2003).
However, more than any other, it was the Alliance which invested time, money, and personnel to find ways of obtaining an uncontested commitment to the pronatalist and pro-family idea. The organization of a teaching programme corresponded to the Alliance’s objectives, enabling it to base its pro-family position on an issue which was related to raising the moral tenor of society. The familiaux had accused it of focusing on legislative issues and ignoring morality. The basis of the idea of “climate”, to be established through education, was that natality was linked to moral issues. The aim was to overcome individualistic attitudes and encourage fertility behaviour which conformed to morality (De Luca, forthcoming in 2005). This propaganda could therefore also be interpreted as the association’s attempt to position itself in an area where it felt threatened, namely the moralization of society.
Let us now examine the practical methods use to organize pronatalist and pro-family instruction in schools.
III. The 1920s: the Alliance in schools
The beginning of systematic action in favour of the development of pronatalist and pro-family instruction in schools can be dated back to 1920
[3]. During that year, Fernand Boverat proposed a revision of education programmes to the Minister for Public Instruction that would include population issues at every level of schooling. On the basis of an evaluation of the demographic consequences of the war, the main representatives of large family leagues, such as Auguste Isaac, argued that an education programme was needed (De Luca, 2004a). The Alliance immediately mobilized its network to take charge of the matter. The presence of André Honnorat, an Alliance member, as Minister for Public Instruction also explains these first steps.
What did the Alliance suggest through Boverat? For primary school pupils it recommended including questions on the population of France in programmes leading to the school certificate, and displaying posters illustrating depopulation on schoolroom walls. For secondary education, it suggested adding a course in the curriculum on the birth rate and death rate in France as compared with other European powers. These topics would also be studied in history, geography, philosophy, and mathematics, and were to be included in baccalauréat exams. For young girls, a dozen lectures on child-care were considered sufficient to awaken their interest in children. It seems that the Alliance took up the issue rather late, since in 1920 the Conseil supérieur de l’instruction publique (Senior council for public instruction) had already made significant progress on the reorganization of school curricula
[4] (AN F17 13658 and 13670). But the Alliance demonstrated its desire to lead the thinking behind the establishment of a teaching programme aimed at establishing a genuine pro-family climate.
One fact encouraged the militants to increase their efforts. This was the success of the 1923 campaign by hygienists to introduce the study of childcare into schools. This network was different from that of the pronatalists, but they were united in the belief that demographic indicators were important for justifying their activity (Rollet, 2001). On 22 June 1923 the decree which introduced the teaching of home economics and childcare stated that “following an agreement between the Ministry for Hygiene and the Ministry for Public Instruction, a circular common to both Ministries gave the arguments in favour of the necessity of teaching childcare, for the purpose of encouraging a future rise in the birth rate and of protecting the lives of small babies” (AN F17 13668). Strengthened by the success of related groups, the Alliance presented the Minister for Public Instruction with a more mature project that considered introducing students to specific population issues rather than teaching demographic facts in general. For example, the significance of demographic factors could be highlighted at several levels. In history, students could study a text by Polybius which “shows Greece at the mercy of invaders because it did not want children”. In geography, a lesson on population should demonstrate “that birth and death rates are in inverse proportion to the level of civilization”. This project was transmitted to the Conseil supérieur de l’instruction publique with the following note:
“The attention of teachers must be drawn to the necessity of making their students understand the role played by the country’s large families, the moral and material rewards that the families themselves find in the sacrifices that they take upon themselves, and the absolute necessity of increasing the French birth rate.” [5]
(AN F17 13949)
The contemporary observer may infer from these proposals that the intent was really to introduce pronatalist and pro-family instruction rather than to teach demography and its specific issues and methods, such as they are understood and taught today (Baccaïni and Gani, 2002). The interwar militants used demography, however, as a tool box devoted exclusively to their ideas, combining facts based on statistics with ideological interpretations. And it was these ideas — and not just the tools — that they sought to disseminate among students in order to guide their behaviour. In political spheres too, under the influence of active Alliance propaganda, the term demography was inextricably linked to natality and the defence of the family. This confusion spread well beyond the sphere of the militants, thanks to their vigorous activity and their powerful networks. In 1924, the words of the Minister for Public Instruction to the lower house of parliament bore witness to this fact. He declared that he supported “not the teaching, the word is a little too vague, but the initiation of children to what we call demography, using a rather barbaric term. Indeed, it is useful to persuade future citizens that the upturn in the birth rate is one of the best methods for protecting the country from new wars. Anything that is likely to develop in the child a taste and love for the family should be at the top of our list of educational concerns” (Bulletin de l’Alliance, December 1924).
The aim was to stimulate reflection on the role of population in the evolution of civilizations at all levels and in every discipline, and to implement a broadly-based teaching programme to create a “pro-family climate”. The Conseil supérieur de l’instruction publique did not take an explicit position on the matter, as it was facing problems with the reduction of teaching schedules and the introduction of foreign languages, which took up most of its work sessions (AN F17 13949 to 13950). In 1924 and 1925, it merely ratified the Minister’s proposals. In the first year of teacher training, family life and its duties were studied in courses on morals (role of the family in the social order, its moral base, spirit and virtues of the family); in the second year, various forms of the family were discussed as well as “how it has lost some of its elementary functions” (AN F17 13668). In public establishments for girls, a course on morals during the third year of secondary school included lessons on the family (notably its social and moral role, respect for the family, the family spirit). It was therefore through “a sprinkling of ideas” that the notion of family, laden with pronatalist ideology, was introduced into schools.
1. Educational tools to serve propaganda
From 1922 on, population issues began timidly to appear in some school manuals, bearing witness to the support that the pronatalists were receiving in some teaching circles, without any ministerial directives having yet been given. Albert Malet and Jules Isaac were the first to mention them, in a chapter devoted to social scourges in their Abrégé d’histoire (Digest of history) destined for older primary school pubils (1922). In his Leçons de morale (Lectures on morals) aimed at the same pupils, Charles Ab der Halden, primary school inspector for the Seine département, devoted several chapters to the family, and explained what was considered a “normal family” according to Jacques Bertillon’s phrase (i.e. with at least three children) as well as the advantages of a large family (1922).
In 1927, at the request of the Alliance, Paul Haury published a pamphlet for the use of militant teachers under the title Pour que vive la France – Éléments d’un enseignement nataliste et familial (So that France may live – elements of pronatalist and pro-family teaching). The author proposed a pronatalist and pro-family programme in this pamphlet which “aims to be nothing more than a tool, the ‘teacher’s manual’ on the subject” (9th natality conference, Toulouse, 1927). The entire project is laid out there.
The pamphlet included a preface written by the director of secondary education, Vial, and this shows that it had drawn the attention of the supervising authorities. It adopted and developed the various examples that had been proposed earlier to the minister. The first section entitled “in the past” was intended for teachers of history and literature. The author sought to demonstrate the influence of population changes on the greatness and the decline of nations since Antiquity. In the “geography” section, the indicators of population growth for various contemporary nations were used to summarize their demographic situation. Finally, the section on “philosophy and morals” repeated the main themes of the pro-family movement: the importance of having a large family, and the honours to which it is entitled. The schools inspector Georges Rossignol
[6] wrote the preface for the teaching appendices of Pour que vive la France. He stated:
“It is undoubtedly superfluous to teach young schoolchildren a scholarly course in demography; but it is possible, while awakening in them a taste for family life, to attract their attention more particularly, and practically, to certain demographic notions that are necessary for the understanding of historical, geographical, and social facts. They readily remember historical dates. By facilitating the task of remembering them through simple procedures, why should the most interesting demographic statistics not be imprinted in their memories?”.
(teaching appendices ofPour que vive la France, 1927)
Thus, it was through problems and practical applications that the more rudimentary demographic tools (indicators of characteristics, trends, and distribution) came into schools. Beyond the direct action of the pronatalists, it was also because the notions of population can be taught using extremely simple indicators that they could be incorporated into teaching curricula at many different levels.
The first edition of Pour que vive la France was published in 65,000 copies. The Alliance sent the pamphlet free of charge to all university administrators, to all teachers in boys’ and girls’ secondary schools, to all primary school teachers in fifteen départements and to those in the regional capitals of all others. Distribution was highly methodical. Thus, pronatalist and pro-family education was supported by active propaganda that provided the necessary raw material and contributed to its dissemination.
The dissemination of the pamphlet was a success. Newspapers such as Le Figaro, L’Écho de Paris, and La Croix welcomed it; Le Temps devoted a front page to it. In February 1927, the Minister for Public Instruction publicized the pamphlet in a circular to chief education officers and instructed them to ensure its dissemination among the teaching staff, thereby contributing to its success among primary school teachers. Encouraged by their superiors, some teachers requested it. But the association which had already invested so much in the enterprise did not have the means to print more copies, so subscriptions were solicited. The Chambers of Commerce, already involved in organizing the natality conferences, were among the first subscribers. The pamphlet, henceforth produced as a book, was printed in 20,000 copies. In May 1927, thanks to the Minister for Public Instruction, the commission for distribution of profits from gambling awarded the Alliance a grant of 100,000 French francs to increase the book’s distribution among teachers. A further 48,000 copies were printed. Thus, in four months, 133,000 copies of the book had been distributed, the majority (125,000) to teaching staff. Further editions raised the total number of copies to 150,000 by the end of 1927.
The book was not the only medium for this propaganda in schools. In 1926, the Alliance published a poster aiming to “draw the attention of primary and secondary school students to the dangers of the decline in natality and the usefulness of the family to individuals and to society” (Bulletin de l’Alliance, July 1926). It comprised a set of juxtaposed vignettes captioned with short texts by Fernand Boverat and including a few figures. The central image represented the interior of a large family’s home: the mother busy at the kitchen table with her children playing nearby, while her husband and eldest son, dressed in working clothes, come through the front door at the end of their working day. A total of 35,000 copies of the colour poster were printed. In November 1926, the Minister for Public Instruction, Nogaro, authorized head teachers to display the posters on their school premises. Nogaro, incidentally, was one of the Alliance’s administrators… In 1931 a new map was produced on which the population of the various countries in 1906 and 1931 was represented by persons of different sizes. Some 60,000 copies were printed and it was particularly well received by the press; more than fifty daily and weekly newspapers are said to have reproduced it. To respond to the numerous requests, the Alliance printed 50,000 copies for regional newspapers and for schools.
What were the results of this campaign to introduce pronatalist and pro-family ideas into schools and how did the study of population, as conceived by the militants, enter into schools through these means?
2. Demography in schools: number of children, family values
Secure in the support of the Ministers for Public Instruction, the Alliance seemed to have won its bet. At every level of education, demography as defined by the Alliance was successfully introduced. This is reflected in the reports on “demographic education” prepared by the chief education officers at the request of the minister, and which are based on the schools inspectors’ reports on their establishments. In a directive dated 11 March 1929 concerning primary education, Minister Pierre Marraud wrote to the chief education officers:
“The National Alliance has suggested that it would be beneficial if the various categories of educational establishments were made aware of the importance of population issues at the present time, including the dangers, from the point of view of national defence and external influences, of the progressive decline in natality. I can only see advantages in fulfilling this wish.”
A note by the director for primary education was attached to the directive evoking the most recent French population figures:
“We must strive to increase our population to meet the country’s needs. The effort should be carried out on two parallel fronts: at the material level, by improving institutions and living conditions, and at the intellectual level, by devoting more attention to the education of will-power […]. It behoves the school to enlighten the spirit and shape the will; it must lead young minds towards founding a family, by teaching them that this is the essential condition of individual happiness.”
(AN F17 13950)
The supervising authorities thus fully approved the idea and the need to create a climate favourable to high fertility by exerting permanent pressure through the propaganda activities organized by the Alliance. The reports provided by the education officers show very clearly how this climate was established. This was not a sure bet, as the support of teachers was required. According to the militants, while there was no systematic opposition from teachers with regard to population issues, “it must be recognized that some of them are not exactly favourable to increasing natality. This is, in part, the fruit of overly critical minds […]: unmasking and denouncing ‘brainwashing’ is, especially since the War, the favourite pastime of whoever boasts any amount of wit.” (Bulletin de l’Alliance, November 1925). Furthermore, “Bolshevism openly advocates small families and attributes the poverty of large families and our own activities to the exploitative selfishness of the ‘capitalists’”. Paul Haury estimated that one teacher in nine (15,000) adhered to Communist beliefs and integrated them into their teaching. “Hundreds of thousands of children are poisoned every year and perhaps contaminated by the example of just a few” (Bulletin de l’Alliance, November 1925). But the militants were even more concerned about the influence of the teachers’ lifestyle as “the vast majority of the teaching body — like the large majority of civil servants — have few, very few, children”. And in fact, a survey of 5,212 civil servants in education in the Nord département — considered one of the most fertile — showed that 36% were single, 16.5% were married but childless, 25% had one child, and 15% had two children. The so-called normal families were very few: only 5.5% of the individuals in the sample had three or more children (Bulletin de l’Alliance, November 1926). Thus the Alliance administrators were aware of being in the paradoxical situation of having to rely for the dissemination of their propaganda on a body of teachers more than half of whom were childless!
The reports of the chief education officers sent to the Alliance were partly published in the Bulletin
[7]. These excerpts must be interpreted with care. By quoting them, the Alliance aimed to demonstrate the effectiveness of its actions to readers, notably those representing the pro-family movement. The excerpts chosen were exemplary. Nevertheless, put together these examples give an idea of the way in which some teachers undertook to create a pro-family climate as requested by their minister; they show which tools were presented, what teaching materials were used, and what sources were exploited.
The teachers’ superiors appear to have led the way, though some reports suggest that the population issue met with a certain degree of indifference. There was some opposition, and even some hostility, particularly from school head teachers. For example, a headmistress explained to the inspector who was asking about her activity that she was “neither in a position nor competent to study this issue” (Bulletin de l’Alliance, December 1929). Elsewhere, the idea met with greater enthusiasm. An inspector offered lectures for teachers on questions such as “Are not the wealth, power, and civilizing influence of a race or a country most frequently a function of its population?” Another invited teachers to compare the French birth rate curve with that of a neighbouring country. One of them even went so far as to suggest that family size should be taken into consideration in the promotion and salary scale of teachers! We have shown that another kind of inspector, those of the welfare service, were also involved in the depopulation debate and that there was an element of group cohesion in their activities, reflecting an ongoing professionalization process (De Luca, 2002). Insofar as the relevant ministry was attuned to the pronatalist discourse and activities, it was in the interest of civil servants to demonstrate their zeal: their promotion depended on it. Our hypothesis is that the situation was similar for schools inspectors, but this would need to be verified through prosopographic analysis.
How was demography brought into the classroom? In those where the teacher was interested in the issue, simple statistical tables were posted on the walls; they were sometimes copied and memorized by the pupils. In the Haute-Loire and the Puy-de-Dôme départements, Alliance posters and postcards covered the walls of some schools. In Rochefort, pupils wrote an essay on the topic “Show that the future of a country depends on the number of babies” (Bulletin de l’Alliance, November 1929). In secondary schools, population issues were introduced in significantly different ways in boys’ and girls’ classes. For boys, the topic was incorporated into subjects that already existed. History, geography, and philosophy lessons provided opportunities to discuss natality. For example, in a lesson on regional geography at a middle school, a teacher attempted to demonstrate that the economic vocation of a region can be determined by its population, and took Alsace as an example because its economic activity was stimulated by a large labour force (Bulletin de l’Alliance, November 1929). In the examples published in the magazine, there is no noticeable innovation by the teachers, who simply followed the suggestions of the Alliance relayed by their supervising ministry: essays on the theme of population, table reading, the drawing of simple graphs.
Reports of the education officers also show which documents were used by teachers. The Alliance’s publications were abundantly used; the association thus increased the dissemination of its magazine. The magazine provided the main documents for presentations such as “Italian immigration”, and “the decline in natality among whites”. Local data were also used for presentations on “depopulation in the Savoie valleys”, and “emigration in the Pyrenees”. Using local archives, the head of a rural school had pupils represent the changes in the local population over the last century and distributed the result to the families of the town (Bulletin de l’Alliance, January 1930).
In girls’ classes “there is little discussion of demography”. Given that “it is delicate to mention Malthusian theories to girls”, one secondary school headmistress preferred “to awaken in them a love of children” (Bulletin de l’Alliance, December 1929). Pronatalist and pro-family education for girls essentially amounted to childcare and hygiene, in response to two types of logic, one linked to the desire among hygienists to reduce infant mortality, and the other to the pronatalist imperative. Visits to institutions (day nurseries, maternity homes or clinics) were preferred to theoretical lessons for the purpose of developing the girls’ maternal instincts (De Luca and Rollet, 1999). Nevertheless, thanks to study texts on the theme of families, the inculcation of family values was not overlooked (Bulletin de l’Alliance, February 1930).
In both girls’ and boys’ classes, the teachers probably did not need the Alliance’s prodding to focus on the importance of the family. But their lessons would henceforth be given from a pronatalist perspective: the family does not only affect the individual, it represents the future of the nation and guarantees its power and invulnerability. Furthermore, the topic was given more emphasis and this may have stimulated the zeal of some teachers who saw an opportunity to be noticed by their inspectors.
During the 1930s, propaganda continued in the schools with the same protagonists, while other militants turned to the army — we will come back to this later. In the Manuel général de l’instruction primaire (General manual for primary education), a weekly aimed at teachers (60,000 of whom were subscribers), Paul Haury wrote numerous articles. On 26 December 1931, the front page featured a map: “44 départements have fewer people than five years ago”. On 14 February 1932, another map made the front page: ”growing nations … and the others”. In the same year, the editors of the Manuel asked the Alliance to examine the consequences for schools of the population forecasts prepared by Alfred Sauvy on behalf of the association. On the basis of assumptions imposed by his sponsors, Sauvy showed the long-term ageing of the population (Rosental, 2003, p. 121). Hence the title of the 16 July 1932 issue of the Manuel: “Vers l’école déserte?” (“Towards empty schools?”) intended to challenge teachers. The mailing of pamphlets such as “La race blanche en danger de mort” (“The white race in mortal danger”) (Boverat, 1933) to chief education officers, schools inspectors and head teachers continued, to such an extent that there was hardly a year when they did not receive something. In 1935, in the new edition of the geography manual by Gallouedec and Maurette for students in teacher training colleges, the chapter on natality and the population was illustrated with graphs designed by the Alliance (Géographie générale, 1935). These reference texts, written to serve for many years, were designed to influence the thinking of teachers and to control their use of demographic tools.
However, despite examples showing that certain members of the teaching profession were open to pronatalist ideas, various comments by the Alliance administrators indicate that they were somewhat dissatisfied, though this was never stated openly in the Bulletin, whose role was to bear witness to the associations’ successes. In 1938, in a report given to the head of government, Boverat considered that it was essential:
“that all geography manuals and not only some of them as is presently the case, highlight the real demographic situation of France, and that the history manuals describe the true demographic revolution that has occurred over the last century and its consequences in the social arena as well as with regard to foreign policy. All secondary and primary school teachers should receive pamphlets that are similar to those sent out by the Alliance nationale contre la dépopulation (National alliance against depopulation) and these booklets should bear the stamp of the government, which would considerably increase their authority. At the present time, a large proportion of teachers are unaware of the main elements of the population problem and the seriousness of the threat posed by the decline in natality.”
(AN F60607)
In the late 1930s, although the Alliance’s activities were by no means negligible, their results were far from meeting expectations. For the pronatalists the situation was critical, especially as war seemed to be inevitable. The birth rate should have been increasing rapidly, but this was not the case. In 1914, the birth rate was 18.1 per thousand. In 1920, it had increased to 20.7 per thousand because of a surge in marriages and births that had been postponed because of the War, but by 1938 it had fallen to 14.6 per thousand. The first measures to push up the birth rate taken in the 1920s had not produced the anticipated results and the propaganda aimed at the younger generations would only have an effect (if any at all) when school-age children reached adulthood. The Alliance therefore needed to step up its activities.
IV. New approaches to the demographic question: ageing and age distribution
The propaganda gradually took a new direction. The concept of generation used by demographers was adopted by militants (Dupâquier and Dupâquier, 1985). It is found in the texts of tracts disseminated from the beginning of the 1930s, both in army barracks and in schools. In 1932, during the natality conference in Dijon, Lefebvre-Dibon declared:
“First the workers, and then the whole category of leaders, from foremen and non-commissioned officers to future engineers, doctors, teachers, officers, mayors, and members of parliament will issue from these generations. Well! Will they not have a completely different outlook from the preceding generation which was not taught anything about the population issue? When each in their own sphere will have orders to give, laws to pass, measures to take, will they not naturally take the benefits or costs to the family into consideration?”
Thereafter, propaganda began to adopt a generational perspective and this explains the new focus of attention on army barracks, following on from schools. These barracks were home to some of the same young people who had been indoctrinated throughout their school years on the consequences of their most intimate acts for the nation and for morals through lessons on nuptiality and natality.
This was a decisive moment because it modified the arguments used by the militants and coincided with a time when the Alliance administrators, many of whom had been members for many years, were wondering about the renewal and rejuvenation of their membership. The familiaux were also considering whether young couples hoping to found large families should be admitted into their ranks (until then only the fathers of large families — with a higher average age — were eligible). During the 1934 natality conference, the movement focused on two concerns:
“Ensuring the replacement of the members and leaders of the associations of large families by associating their activities with those of young households […] and the even greater concern of ensuring the replacement of all ageing generations.”
(Haury, 16th natality conference, Mulhouse, 1934)
Another issue had thus come to the fore: population ageing.
Especially after 1934, the Alliance became interested in the population age distribution. In previous years, comments on the proportion and position of the elderly had become more frequent. During the natality conference in 1923, Jean Théodore, head of the Alliance’s documentation service, mentioned “the impact of the proportion of old people on birth and death rates” (5th natality conference, Marseille, 1923). The concept of population ageing was spreading. After Michel Huber of the French statistical office (Statistique générale de la France – SGF) used the expression “population ageing” in 1931, Fernand Boverat used it in 1934 in one of his books entitled L’effondrement de la natalité et la péréquation des ressources aux charges de famille (The collapse of natality and the adjustment of income to meet family expenditures). But as Patrice Bourdelais notes, “its spread to a wider public proved slower” (Bourdelais, 1997, especially pp. 126-130). And yet, from the end of 1934, the Alliance undertook to introduce this argument more systematically into its propaganda. Addressing young people, it presented the dangers of an old, senile population, hostile to changes and to the young. This powerful argument opposed two age categories as a means to attract young people who were assumed to be in conflict with their elders (Thiercé, 2000). Moreover, closer analysis of the population age distribution provided an opportunity to criticize simple indicators such as the birth and death rates which had been used too exclusively up to then and which masked structural effects. It thus became possible to criticize the arguments of the hygienists who deplored the level of the death rate and who campaigned to focus efforts on its reduction. Through an analysis of the age distribution, the pronatalists showed that the death rate was high because the average age of the population was high. To reduce the death rate, the population simply needed to rejuvenate itself through more births. The concept of population age distribution thus served two strategic needs.
“It is necessary today to supplement demographic education which, at all levels, has a basic flaw: it does not mention the population age distribution. Only crude birth rates are taken into account — and we know how inconclusive they are — or the excess of births over deaths which often gives false impressions about the vitality of various countries.”
(Bulletin de l’Alliance, November 1934)
To fill this gap, Boverat and Haury prepared a note illustrated with pyramids showing the population age distribution, for use in history and geography lessons aimed at high school students specializing in philosophy and mathematics. The Minister for Public Instruction gave his approval for the dissemination of this document. It was sent to all the chief education officers, schools inspectors, head teachers, and history and geography teachers with a covering letter from the minister highlighting the importance of presenting the age distribution of a population
[8]. In 1935, the population pyramid was thus introduced into schools through the medium of history and geography lessons. In January of the same year, one chief education officer wrote that the population pyramid was “evocative and almost frightening. The time has come to draw the attention of young people to these serious problems” (Bulletin de l’Alliance, January 1935). The pyramid also appeared on cinema screens. A new propaganda cartoon entitled Le danger de la dépopulation (The danger of depopulation) was produced. It lasted 20 minutes, and was intended to serve as a starting point for discussion.
“The sequence on the population pyramid required considerable work but we succeeded in showing how a population pyramid is formed and maintained in a country with a normal birth rate and how it becomes misshapen in a country where the birth rate is too low and ends up with more old people than children”.
(Bulletin de l’Alliance, June 1935)
After the population pyramid, Fernand Boverat attempted to introduce a new indicator into schools: the net reproduction rate “as a criterion of the vitality of nations” (Bulletin de l’Alliance, July 1937; Le Bras, 1981). The indicator combined fertility and mortality to account for the “net productivity of marriages”
[9]. The net reproduction rate was a big success with the militants of the Alliance, since it highlighted depopulation more vividly than a crude rate by showing that generations were not being replaced by an equivalent number of people. They obtained the following circular from Minister Jean Zay, dated 1 July 1937:
“The decline in natality that coincides with an (otherwise very fortunate) increase in the duration of life produces a growing imbalance between the number of young people who will be the workers and taxpayers of tomorrow and the number of old people, an increasing proportion of whom are pensioners or welfare recipients […]. The severity of the depopulation threat has been hidden for too long by the use of inadequate criteria to measure the vitality of human groups, such as the crude birth and death rates which fail to take the population age distribution into account. That is why modern demography has replaced these rates with the reproduction (or replacement) rate which indicates how many daughters 1,000 women bring into the world in order to replace themselves in the following generation”.
The following year, however, Boverat complained to the head of government that the majority of those concerned did not read the circular (AN F60606). To facilitate the introduction of the concepts of ageing and the replacement of generations, issue number 11 of Natalité, the Alliance’s widely distributed four-page bulletin, focused exclusively on these issues.
The dissemination of these concepts was also facilitated by the publication of what the militants considered to be the first demographic treatise in 1937. Until then, the references quoted had been the publications of Levasseur (La population française, 1890), Jacques Bertillon (La dépopulation de la France, 1911), and Landry (La revolution démographique, 1934). On 8 January 1936, the Conseil supérieur de la natalité expressed the wish that “a practical treatise of French demography be written and published by a particularly competent person” (CSN, 1936). Its drafting was entrusted to two SGF statisticians, Michel Huber, the director, and Henri Bunle, the head of the demography section. Boverat was responsible for the section on “the consequences of depopulation”. Entitled La population de la France, son évolution et ses perspectives (The population of France, its evolution and its prospects), the publication was “both a book popularizing the subject and placing it within the reach of an enlightened public to which it was hitherto inaccessible, and a source of documentation, an infinitely precious working tool for all those who wish to study population issues” (Bulletin de l’Alliance, November 1937). The book introduced new issues debated among specialists. Through the medium of propaganda, these issues moved beyond the circle of experts to enter the public arena, not to be debated, but rather interpreted and assimilated.
V. Propaganda in the army
From 1928, the Alliance turned to the army to instruct the younger generations. In March, the president of the Alliance, Paul Lefebvre-Dibon, had appointments with the Minister of War and the Minister of the Navy. He submitted “a detailed plan of pronatalist propaganda” that might be adopted by the Army and the Navy and offered the assistance of his association for its implementation. The plan of action was approved at once. On 5 November 1928, the War Minister addressed a circular to the commanders of army corps that “officially instituted pronatalist propaganda in the French Army”. The circular recommended setting up three annual “talks” on the dangers of depopulation in army units and military schools. The first should be directed at officers, and the other two at noncommissioned officers and privates. A leaflet and a pamphlet listing the benefits available to large families were to be distributed. The latter document was inserted in the individual booklet that soldiers received at their discharge. The talks and leaflets were organized and paid for by the Alliance. At the 1929 natality conference, Lefebvre-Dibon rejoiced:
“We are on the right track […] not only is the attention of pupils and students drawn today to the danger of the decline in births in France, but every year 250,000 young people discharged from military service know, at the time when they are thinking of founding a family, that it is the duty of all Frenchmen to contribute not only to the defence of their country but also to its future.”
(11th natality conference, Rennes, 1929)
In early 1929, the Alliance supplied army barracks with 25,000 standard conference texts, 20,000 copies of Paul Haury’s book Pour que vive la France, 250,000 illustrated leaflets entitled “Vos anciens ont gagné la guerre… à vous d’assurer la paix” (Your elders won the war… it is your duty to ensure peace), and an equal number of booklets dealing with “Avantages réservés aux familles nombreuses” (Benefits available to large families). Document distribution continued at the same pace in 1930. In 1931, the Alliance provided the commanders of the army corps with more than 450,000 pamphlets to accompany the conferences and talks. Posters were displayed in the meeting rooms of all units. The cinema also contributed to the dissemination of this information. In 1931, La France en péril (France in danger) presented “in a striking manner, with cartoons and film footage, the decline in our birth rate, the depopulation of certain regions, and the influx of foreigners” (Bulletin de l’Alliance, February 1931). This film was made available free of charge to the military authorities for broadcast and discussion. Another film, Natalité (Natality), would come later.
It was apparently easy to convince the military hierarchy. No doubt the activities and contacts of General Borie, the director of the Alliance, and Colonel Hémar
[10], one of its administrators, helped make the propagandists welcome. But the speed at which the efforts were implemented demonstrates that the military hierarchy was already sensitive to the “problems of the decline in natality”. It is true that since the creation of the association, one of the strongest arguments for alerting public opinion was the decline in the number of soldiers who could be mobilized. Moreover, high-ranking officers were often present during the general assemblies of the Alliance. During the 1930s, the discussions enabled the Alliance to increase its presence in military circles. Thus, on 24 March 1938, Paul Haury presented a lecture on “The role of numbers in modern warfare” (SHAT 2N 284 13) to the Collège des hautes etudes de la Défense nationale (National defence institute) during which he developed the concept of “active forces” usable in times of war (i.e. men aged between 20 and 45), and introduced thoughts on the relations between the size of age groups and population ageing. The archives also show the willingness of the command structure to take family characteristics into account when assigning specific positions to enlisted men (SHAT 31 N100 and 6N 437). The efforts of the pronatalists and the familiaux were therefore effective in this area. Meanwhile, in addition to establishing contacts, the Alliance sought to make its activities more visible and, in particular, more permanent. General Borie obtained, on a trial basis, permission to establish garrison delegates in three military regions. They were responsible for organizing the propaganda, overseeing its implementation in each garrison and keeping themselves informed of measures which might be useful to soldiers with families to support. They were to maintain regular contact with the Alliance for help and guidance. The hierarchy sometimes led by example. A few generals were eager to give talks, and advised their men to read the association’s magazine. The idea of contributing through propaganda to the greatness of the nation could not fail to attract military men who were familiar with this type of argument.
Thirty-six officers of the standing army and the reserve, all fathers of families and won over to the pronatalist cause, were named as delegates. They had a total of 450,000 leaflets and notices to distribute. As was the case in schools, the excerpts or documents quoted in the Bulletin de l’Alliance were to be treated as examples singled out by the militants as significant and considered worthy of display. Activities were of a diverse nature. In cities with several military units, the delegate himself gave lectures to the soldiers and organized the talks given by sub-delegates in each unit. The propaganda was therefore very strongly structured, with a veritable chain of command to relay the information. Some obtained grants from local associations for large families to hire cinemas to show the Alliance’s films. In addition to lectures, the delegates were in charge of disseminating information, of supplying the libraries of officers and noncommissioned officers with carefully chosen books and leaflets and placarding posters in communal areas. In Vincennes, a permanent information bureau on special benefits for large families was set up. The delegates’ mission was thus multifaceted. Pronatalist and pro-family propaganda in the army extended beyond the activities of a few delegates however. In the south of France, for example, a reserve squadron leader organized a talk for soldiers who were about to be discharged. Extending beyond the scope of official propaganda, he explained depopulation and discussed the Alliance’s films. As a conclusion, he created “a joyous atmosphere and had an orchestra play military marches and entertaining pieces”. He wrote to Lefebvre-Dibon that:
“The repeated exclamations and applause provided ample proof of the positive effect on the group and I am absolutely convinced that very good seed has been sown. Let us hope that some of it will germinate!”
(Bulletin de l’Alliance, April 1933).
Every year, during a banquet provided by the association, the delegates met and were congratulated on their zeal by the military hierarchy.
In June 1933, it was time to assess the results obtained. The generals of the pilot regions sent a report to the Minister showing the importance of this propaganda and the potential advantages of extending this activity. Consequently, on 1 May 1933, the experiment was extended to the other regions which were to nominate delegates “chosen among volunteer reserve officers most qualified by their demographic knowledge and their family situation”. Moreover, “their collaboration in this propaganda could be rewarded by letters of congratulation or a citation in the Journal Officiel” (quoted in the Bulletin de l’Alliance, June 1933). A total of 161 delegates were mobilized across France to educate young recruits. Each received a “pack of information pamphlets” which included leaflets, notices, brochures, maps, the book Pour que vive la France, a sample lecture, and posters to be distributed to the soldiers. This officialization of pronatalist propaganda in army barracks enabled the Alliance to extend its activities to military academies. In 1934, it sent its “propagandist’s baggage” to the academies of Saint-Cyr and Saint-Maixent, and to the École Polytechnique. Following distribution of the brochures, 169 students of Saint-Cyr joined the association. The propaganda continued until 1939.
Here again, as was the case with the schools inspectors, the very fact that the command structure committed itself, in word if not in deed, to the fight against the declining birth rate and the promotion of large families encouraged the personnel to do likewise. By eagerly obeying orders, these individual links simply echoed the support for the cause observed in the highest spheres. In this sense, the active propaganda among leadership circles complemented the propaganda designed to create a family climate among the ranks. It provided a means to indoctrinate the officer corps with pronatalist ideology so they would carry out an activity which required their support in principle, if not their total commitment.
In schools and army barracks, the “modus operandi” of the propaganda campaigns was typical of the period: multiple channels, methodical dissemination of educational tools. Propaganda was therefore linked to the idea of education: it was necessary to learn and teach, to inculcate new behaviour. In the area of health education for example, the methods used were identical. From the viewpoint of methods and media, the pronatalist and pro-family propaganda had no distinctive characteristics. In schools, pupils were informed about the dangers of alcohol (Fillaut, 1998; Fillaut et al., 2000). Manuals were also devoted to the teaching of hygiene in schools (Rollet, 1993, 2000). This was part and parcel of an education system, charged with ideology, which sought to convince by relying on the scientific knowledge that it helped to disseminate.
Conclusion
In 1939, at the time when the Family Code was set in place, the two approaches to pronatalist and pro-family education that co-existed within the Alliance nationale pour l’accroissement de la population française were both adopted. The first aimed at introducing family morals into all the disciplines in the curriculum by relying on indicators relative to the population without making them explicit, most of all in primary education. This was characteristic of the tactics adopted in the 1920s and of the desire to create a “pro-family climate”, and was represented above all by Haury. The second approach, represented by Boverat, aimed to introduce demographic tools that provided a clear illustration of population trends and their impact on the nation. They were mainly presented in history and geography lessons. This approach gained prominence from the 1930s with the development of indicators and graphs judged to be “evocative”, and mainly targeted secondary school students. However, the two concepts were not incompatible. There was no apparent rivalry between the two men, who were undoubtedly convinced that they supported one and the same cause. They were both using propaganda tools, and their attitudes differed only in their approach to the presentation of these tools.
Following the liberation of France, the Minister for Education, in his circular of 16 November 1944, asked the education officers and schools inspectors to “ensure that demographic education is organized in full conformity with the set model” and referred to the decree of 6 April 1943 which prescribed “the teaching of demographic issues, in their statistical aspects as well as in their relations with moral and family issues”. The model of Article 142 of the Family Code, endorsed by Vichy, was given a new lease of life. With regard to the military, the Ministers for the Navy and War agreed to revive the pronatalist and pro-family lectures. The new government did not call these established activities into question. The same protagonists as before provided teachers and officers with informative booklets and manuals. If the Liberation did not cause a sudden change in propaganda activities, it was because of the consensus surrounding the need to establish a “pro-family climate” (AN F17 14300).
The propaganda was thus methodical and massive, and made use of varied and modern tools. Although it is impossible to determine whether it was effective and whether it indeed prompted behaviour which, in the eyes of the propagandists, corresponded to the awareness that each person should have of population issues, the actual knowledge of demography that resulted is an open question
[11]. As Paul-André Rosental noted, “sensitivity to the notions of demography [is] a French exception” (Rosental, 2003, p. 9). In November 1947, INED carried out a survey “designed to measure as exactly as possible the level of information of the public on matters of population” (Bresard, 1948). Various questions were put to adults (who included the students and army recruits of the interwar period): number of inhabitants, evolution and distribution of the population, number of foreigners, etc. The answers led to the conclusion that 17% of the French were well informed, 49% were poorly informed, and 34% were totally uninformed. On the public’s preferences with regard to the population, 73% of respondents wanted the population to increase, and 38% of those justified this wish “by reasons of national prestige and patriotism” ; while 22% of respondents wanted the population to remain stationary for fear of food shortages. To increase the population, 80% of those interviewed favoured an increase in births, and only 2% mentioned immigration. At any rate, whether or not they were well informed, the majority of the respondents boasted at least some interest in demography and expressed an opinion on population issues. Undoubtedly, the relentless propaganda of the pronatalists had contributed to an awareness of demographic facts in the population.
BIBLIOGRAPHIE
Archives nationales – AN (National Archives)
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Présidence du Conseil (Office of the Head of Government)
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F 60499 Démographie, Natalité
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F 60606 Natalité, Alliance nationale
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F 60607 Familles nombreuses: Official texts, correspondence, petitions, 1935-1946
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Versement du ministère de l’Instruction publique (Files of the Ministry for Public Instruction)
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F17 13658 Wishes expressed to the Conseil supérieur de l’Instruction publique et des Beaux-Arts
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F17 13668-13669 Minutes of the sessions of the permanent commission of the Conseil supérieur de l’Instruction publique…, 1921-1929
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F17 13670-13671 Projects and reports of the Conseil supérieur de l’Instruction publique…, 1913-1940
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F17 13949 Reforms and programmes 1920-1923
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F17 13950 Schedules and programmes 1922-1948
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F17 14300 Reports of the schools inspectors 1943-1944, education conferences
Service historique de l’Armée de terre–SHAT, Vincennes (Historical service of the Ministry of the Army)
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Natalité : 2N 192-3; 2N 192-4; 2N 192-5
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Natalité et Familles nombreuses : 2N 284-4; 2N 284-13
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Familles nombreuses : 6N 437-5
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Aide sociale : 31N 100-2; 31N 100-3
Printed sources cited
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Le Bulletin de l’Alliance nationale pour l’accroissement de la population française, 1920-1939.
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Natality conferences from 1919 to 1938. The years mentioned in the text are the years in which the conferences took place. The papers presented were published in the following year, most frequently by the Comité permanent pour la natalité.
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Bulletins of associations of large families such as La plus Grande Famille, Pour la Vie, 1920-1939.
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Proceedings of the sessions of the Conseil supérieur de la natalité.
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Boverat Fernand, 1933, 1st ed., La race blanche en danger de mort, Paris, éditions de l’Alliancenationale, 40 p.
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Boverat Fernand, 1934, L’effondrement de la natalité et la péréquation des ressources aux charges de famille, Paris, Alliance nationale contre la dépopulation, 85 p.
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Bresard Marcel, 1948, “Enquête sur l’information du public en matière démographique”, Population, 3(2), pp. 367-370.
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Gallouedec Louis, Maurette Fernand, 1935, Géographie générale, Paris, Brodart et Taupin, 2 Vol., 736 p. et 579 p.
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Halden Charles Abder, 1922, Leçons de morale (first year programmes), Paris, Armand Colin, 216 p.
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Haury Paul, 1923, La vie ou la mort de la France [Brochure awarded first place (50,000 franc prize) in the competition for the Michelin Natality Prize], Paris, Vuibert, 32 p.
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Haury Paul, 1927, Pour que vive la France – Éléments d’un enseignement nataliste et familial. Paris, éditions de l’Alliance nationale, 225 p.
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Huber Michel, Bunle Henri, Boverat Fernand, 1937, La population de la France, son évolution et ses perspectives, Paris, Hachette, 366 p.
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Malet Albert, Isaac Jules, 1922, Cours abrégé d’histoire. Écoles primaires supérieures, Cours complémentaires, Préparation au brevet, Paris, Hachette, 320 p.
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Baccaïni Brigitte, Gani Léon, 2002, La population en question. Une enquête sur les connaissances et les interprétations socio-économiques des élèves de terminale, Paris, INED (Cahier no. 146), 254 p.
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Bourdelais Patrice, 1997, L’âge de la vieillesse. Histoire du vieillissement de la population, Paris, Odile Jacob, 500 p.
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Chauvière Michel, 1992, “L’expert et les propagandistes. Afred Sauvy et le Code de la famille de 1939”, Population, 47(6), pp. 1441-1452.
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Chauvière Michel, Bussat Virginie, 2000, Famille et codification. Le périmètre du familial dans la production des normes, Paris, La Documentation française.
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Cibois Philippe, 1982, “Le natalisme national”, Esprit, 10, pp. 76-96.
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De Luca Virginie, 2001, “Les femmes et les enfants aussi ou le droit d’être représenté par le vote familial”, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, December, 140, pp. 51-57.
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De Luca Virginie, 2002, Aux origines de l’État providence. Les inspecteurs de l’Assistance publique et l’aide sociale à l’enfance, Paris, INED (coll. Études et enquêtes historiques), 368 p.
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NOTES
[*]
Laboratoire Printemps, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.Translated from the French by Accenta Ltd.
Laboratoire Printemps, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.Translated from the French by Accenta Ltd.
[1]Underlined by the author.
Underlined by the author.
[2]When the Fédération des associations de familles nombreuses (Federation of associations of large families) was created in 1920, its representatives made the founder of the Alliance, Jacques Bertillon, an honorary member (even though he only had one child - a daughter) (Talmy, 1962).
When the Fédération des associations de familles nombreuses (Federation of associations of large families) was created in 1920, its representatives made the founder of the Alliance, Jacques Bertillon, an honorary member (even though he only had one child - a daughter) (Talmy, 1962).
[3]We will not examine the special case of the universities and the private educational system here. In the latter case, issues of family morality were apparently discussed in the classroom and large families were promoted. The Alliance did not work in this area although it did occasionally send tracts to private school teachers.
We will not examine the special case of the universities and the private educational system here. In the latter case, issues of family morality were apparently discussed in the classroom and large families were promoted. The Alliance did not work in this area although it did occasionally send tracts to private school teachers.
[4]There is no trace in the National Archives of the transmission of the Alliance’s project to the Conseil supérieur de l’instruction publique.
There is no trace in the National Archives of the transmission of the Alliance’s project to the Conseil supérieur de l’instruction publique.
[5]The note is unsigned.
The note is unsigned.
[6]He was a militant from an early date and the author, under the pseudonym of R. Debury, of a book that attracted some attention, Un pays de célibataires et de fils uniques (A country of unmarried men and only children) (1896). He had been a member of the second depopulation commission in 1912, edited the periodical Pour la vie, and was a member of the Conseil supérieur de la natalité. The book included practical exercises. For example, teachers could ask pupils to copy sentences such as “depopulation is the suicide of the races and the death of a country”. The pupils could calculate: “France has 40 million inhabitants while Germany has 63 million. How many more inhabitants than France does Germany have?”
He was a militant from an early date and the author, under the pseudonym of R. Debury, of a book that attracted some attention, Un pays de célibataires et de fils uniques (A country of unmarried men and only children) (1896). He had been a member of the second depopulation commission in 1912, edited the periodical Pour la vie, and was a member of the Conseil supérieur de la natalité. The book included practical exercises. For example, teachers could ask pupils to copy sentences such as “depopulation is the suicide of the races and the death of a country”. The pupils could calculate: “France has 40 million inhabitants while Germany has 63 million. How many more inhabitants than France does Germany have?”
[7]The files of the Ministry of Education consulted at the National Archives do not contain any of these documents.
The files of the Ministry of Education consulted at the National Archives do not contain any of these documents.
[8]The representation of population numbers by sex, age, and cohort in the form of a pyramid is attributed to the Superintendent of the United States census of 1870. Presented during the Paris International Exposition of 1878, its use spread rapidly among specialists (Dupâquier and Dupâquier, 1985).
The representation of population numbers by sex, age, and cohort in the form of a pyramid is attributed to the Superintendent of the United States census of 1870. Presented during the Paris International Exposition of 1878, its use spread rapidly among specialists (Dupâquier and Dupâquier, 1985).
[9]Jacques Bertillon intuited this indicator but only later did the Italian Corrado Gini invent the concept of cohort replacement in 1912 (Dupâquier and Dupâquier, 1985).
Jacques Bertillon intuited this indicator but only later did the Italian Corrado Gini invent the concept of cohort replacement in 1912 (Dupâquier and Dupâquier, 1985).
[10]In 1942, he wrote a 40 page brochure entitled “Comment reconquérir le Français à l’idée familiale” (How to restore the notion of family in France) which inspired the title of our article.
In 1942, he wrote a 40 page brochure entitled “Comment reconquérir le Français à l’idée familiale” (How to restore the notion of family in France) which inspired the title of our article.
[11]The fact that the “cohorts” subjected to this propaganda in schools and barracks were the parents of the baby-boom generation is not sufficient proof that it was effective.
The fact that the “cohorts” subjected to this propaganda in schools and barracks were the parents of the baby-boom generation is not sufficient proof that it was effective.
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