He saw that countries like France had moved from an age of high birth rates and high mortality, with the size of the population determined by the amount of food available, through a transition period to an age of low birth rates and long lives.

Michel Auguste Adolphe Landry was born on 29 September 1874 in Ajaccio, Corsica, to an old Corsican family.

[3] In his 1901 thesis on the social utility of private property Landry presented the work of Karl Marx as an important achievement, but one that could be corrected and improved.

In 1904 he published L'intérêt du capital, followed by various other works on economics, the history of art, political sociology and so on.

He was extremely active on issues such as workers' and peasants' pensions, family income tax, trade and finance.

[3] On 24 September 1920 he was appointed Minister of the Navy in the cabinet of Georges Leygues, which resigned on 12 January 1921.

He was appointed Minister of Labor and Social Security in the 1st and 2nd cabinets of Pierre Laval, from 27 January 1931 to 16 February 1932.

[9] After the Liberation of France Landry would not accept appointment to the Provisional Consultative Assembly due to his Republican principles.

He was charged with advising the government on matters related to protecting the family, increasing the birthrate and integrating foreigners.

In 1947 he moved to New York to reestablish the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, and was elected president of this organization.

He joined the Rally of Left Republicans (Rassemblement des gauches républicaines, RGR) in the Council of the Republic.

He said the government should respond by giving strong incentives for parents to have more children, such as family allowances and child care.

[10] Landry argued that a worldwide shift in the relative size of populations of countries would change the balance of power and threaten the position of France.

There would be a lag while the population learned that the drop in infant mortality was real, and adjusted to new social norms that place less importance in large families.