Introduction

On 17 January 2005, France was celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Veil law. This landmark in contemporary French social history legalised the right to abortion, closely following the Neuwirth law on free access to the contraceptive pill. The ‘second contraceptive revolution’ emerged in the midst of the 1968 feminist battles, which paved the path for significant changes in the sexual reproductive behaviour of the French, including that of teenagers (Mossuz-Lavau, 2002; Jaspard, 2005). The existing consensus is based on two assumptions: first, that fertility is under control; and second, that childbearing is strongly associated with adulthood, a desire to have a child and an ability to ‘take responsibility’ (Leridon, 1995). Moreover, despite displaying higher fertility rates compared to many of their European counterparts, French women have increasingly delayed the birth of their first child (Prioux, 2004). In 2004, the fertility rate stood at 1.9 and the mean age at birthgiving for the first child was just below 30 compared to 26 in the early 1970s. Meanwhile, late pregnancies among women aged over 40 are on the rise (Daguet, 1999; Prioux, 2004). In this changing demographic context, it is therefore not surprising that births to teenagers are often portrayed as an anomalous case of deviant and immature behaviour (Le Van, 1998).

Drawing upon the case of France, this chapter provides a discussion of teenage reproductive politics, which is understood herein as a field encompassing public attitudes, laws and measures towards teenage sexuality, pregnancy and parenthood. The chapter shows that the low incidence of teenage motherhood in France compared to countries of the liberal welfare regime has been achieved in the absence of any targeted policy specifically designed to prevent births to teenagers. Rather, it appears that this phenomenon has been indirectly prevented through the comprehensive social policy framework that characterises France’s republican version of the conservative-corporatist welfare regime. This framework comprises universal rights in the fields of public health, youth education, family and childhood protection. However, the deliberate wish to avoid considering teenage motherhood as a pathological social problem means that specialist provision remains weak in some French localities and that adequate governance models are still to be invented.