Several conclusions can be drawn from this study that help our understanding of eugenics in general as well as specific movements for the biological regeneration of France in the twentieth century. The most obvious general conclusion is that eugenics was not simply an Anglo-Saxon phenomenon. A cursory look at any international eugenics congress reveals several participants from other countries of Southern and Eastern Europe and, later on, Latin America and Japan. In France there were organizational, propaganda, and legislative activities that not only supported this international participation, but made eugenics part of the national debate on political and social questions during the first four decades of the twentieth century.

The history of French eugenics also demonstrates that acceptance of Mendelism was not a prerequisite for those whose goal was the biological improvement of the human race. In fact, Mendelian eugenics only appeared in France in the 1930s as part of one of the more extreme proposals for immigration restriction. Although in this case it confirmed the link between Mendelism and harsher negative measures, it was exceptional. The French Eugenics Society, which was founded in 1912, deserved its reputation as the home of a neo-Lamarckian eugenics whose main emphasis was on positive measures. One key reason for the development of this emphasis was the population problem. The decline of the French birthrate in the nineteenth century, and the fear of depopulation at the turn of the century, worked against proposals for negative measures (even though aimed at the “unfit”) if they might be a general hindrance to marriage or procreation.