In France, from the 19th century up to the end of the Second World War, the birth rate was much lower than in other European countries. France's population grew much slower than that of Germany or Britain, which was a major source of anxiety for its citizens. This phenomenon was called dénatalité, and attention became more focused on it after France's defeat by Prussia and the foundation of the Third French Republic in 1870-71.

The exact causes of dénatalité are hard to pin down, but some historians have named the introduction of partible inheritance during the French Revolution as one of the contributing factors. Under the system of partible inheritance, parents had to divide their property equally among their children (instead of giving it all to the oldest son), which may have discouraged childbirth.

The fall in birth rate became something like an ink blot test for the different social and political groups that made up French society. Each group believed that its cause was what they were most wary of. Dénatalité made many French men feel insecure, not only because it was a threat to the country's military power against its rivals, but because they perceived its cause as a lack of virility and manliness. Conservatives, including royalists, blamed it on France's supposed cultural and societal decay, as exemplified by the founding of the republic. The Church blamed secularism. Socialists blamed capitalism, and feminists blamed the system in which women were deprived of political rights. Some of the latter claimed that women were deciding to have less children as a silent protest against their oppression.

In response to the fall in birth rate, the Catholic Church took a stricter position against abortion and birth control. The statistician Jacques Bertillon founded the Alliance for the Growth of the French Population in 1896. After the First World War, the Bloc National, the conservative political alliance in control of the government at the time, passed a couple of laws in 1920 and 1923 respectively intended to help the birth rate. The first law introduced penalties for people who distributed pro-contraceptive propaganda, and the second stated that anyone who assisted with an abortion would go to prison. Later, the Family Code of 1939 introduced financial rewards for families who had more than one child. The baby boom after the end of the Second World War finally caused the birth rate to recover.