“Citizens Useful to Their Country and to Humanity”: The Convergence of Eugenics and Pro-Natalism in Interwar French Politics, 1918–1940

Interwar France witnessed a convergence of two ostensibly diametrically opposed phenomena: eugenics and pro-natalism. In the 1930s in particular, pro-natalists, desiring to raise the French birthrate, and eugenicists, pursuing racial hygiene, came together both literally and discursively, allowing them to exercise a high degree of influence on politics and policy. In this manner, although France did not conduct a campaign of sterilization as did many other countries, eugenics influenced the formation of the French welfare state nonetheless, suggesting that historians should reassess their interpretation of its origins.