Spotlight | French Studies
The politics of adoption
Bruno Perreau examines views on gender, parenthood, and "Frenchness"
“My study of the politics of adoption tackles the imagined world of citizenship. In France, parenthood and 'Frenchness' are two sides of the same coin.”
— Bruno Perreau
Associate Professor of French Studies
On May 18, 2013 France legalized same-sex marriage, and simulataneously, adoption by homosexual couples. During the lead up to President François Hollande signing the “marriage for all” act into law, opposition protests erupted across France. Nearly a year later, demonstrations against the law continue to occur, with protestors claiming the French government is "family-phobic," or opposed to the traditional family dynamic of man, woman, and child.
Bruno Perreau, Associate Professor of French Studies in the MIT SHASS Global Studies and Languages section, says that the French public's outcry is, in part, stirred by concerns with homosexuality itself. However, he says, the outcry also points to deeper issues, in particular French citizens' discomfort with how the new law challenges widely-held, traditional French values in the overlapping realms of gender, parenthood, and citizenship.
Cover, The Politics of Adoption: Gender and the Making of French Citizenship (MIT Press, 2014)

Suggested Links
Bruno Perreau webpage
MIT SHASS | Global Studies and Languages
The Politics of Adoption, by Bruno Perreau, MIT Press, 2014
Archive | 3 Questions: Interview with Bruno Perreau
Archive: Perreau receives Newton Fellowship from the British Academy and Research Associate appointment from Cambridge University
Archive: Perreau awarded Stanford Humanities Center External Faculty Fellowship for 2014-15