• In France, eight out of ten children still bear their father's name, although the law allows them to use the double surname or the mother's name.

  • A standard that is perpetuated and which has driven the collective Porte mon nom called for the automation of the double surname.

  • For its founder, Marine Gatineau Dupre, this would push towards a more just society.

Since the law of March 4, 2002, parents can transmit the name of the father, that of the mother, or both.

However, seventeen years later, 81.4% of children born in 2019 still bore only the father's surname, against 6.6% that of the mother and 11.7% the double name, according to INSEE. .

Things are moving very slowly.

They were thus 83% in 2013 to carry only the name of the father, that is to say a virtual stagnation in six years.

How to change this monopoly?

The collective Porte mon nom, created in 2019, campaigns for the automation of the double name at birth.

With several thousand signatories, this proposal will be studied by the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti.

20 Minutes

interviewed the founder of the collective, Marine Gatineau Dupre.

How to explain that eight children out of ten still carry the name of the father, whereas the law leaves the choice since 2002?

Because it is the norm and the norm is self-sustaining.

A mother who wants the child to bear her name, alone or with that of her spouse, risks misunderstanding on the part of her partner, or even exposes herself to violence.

And when you are pregnant and fragile, when deciding therefore, you want to avoid arguments, you bow to the will of the other.

But even for men, it turns out to be complicated!

I received the testimony of a man in my collective who wanted his child to bear only the mother's name.

He is accused by the other parents of denying his child or of not accepting it, or even of having adopted it!

This is why leaving a choice is not enough, because when a standard is 80% in favor of men, you are sure that it is risky to oppose it.

We must therefore change the standard, and standardize the double name.

If steps must be taken to keep only the name of the father, the percentage will already drop more quickly.

The standard will not change on its own, we have to put in a serious push.

How is it problematic to have 80% of children bearing the father's name?

First, it makes mothers and wives invisible. It is an ancestral process which no longer makes much sense in our time. We are no longer among the Tudors or at the time of the inheritance of land for the only eldest son. The current law on the devolution of the family name is violent for women, does not correspond to our current society, and infringes on freedoms. For a parent whose child does not bear the name, it is an accumulation of problems: it is always necessary to justify that this child is his, which wastes a time and a crazy energy. And given that at 80%, it is the name of the father, it is the women who suffer most of this wrong.

Pernicious consequence: in order to avoid these daily galleys, women are encouraged to take the name of their husband, which contributes to their invisibilization.

Finally, in a country where 45% of marriages end in divorce, the double name would greatly simplify things for the child.

So the double name is meant to be a feminist measure?

Yes, even if we can not sum it up to that.

We must also think of people who have suffered violence, rape, trauma in their families and who experience very badly the fact of having a name associated with a painful memory or a person.

Today, changing your name is a real obstacle course that often takes several years.

Our wish is that the child, when he comes of age, can choose the name he bears: either the double name, in the order he wishes, either that of the father or that of the mother.

This would make it much easier for some victims to free themselves from a painful name.

We must be able to be free of our name, which current society does not allow!

Society

Women's Rights Day: "In France, the cultivation of virility costs nearly 100 billion euros each year"

Society

What place do the names of the streets and the statues have in the collective memory?

  • gender equality

  • Family

  • Women

  • Society