A demographic research institute was first set up in France in response to the government's strong interest in population issues. Between the two world wars, concerns about the falling birth rate in France had profoundly marked an entire generation and led to the creation of the Alliance nationale contre la dénatalité (National alliance against denatality) and the Mouvement nataliste (Pro-natalist movement). In 1939, faced with the growing German threat, the Daladier government responded to public pressure by setting up the Haut comité à la famille (High commission for the family) and passing a Family Law. When Marshal Pétain come to power he immediately blamed France's defeat on the declining French birth rate and, in a law dated 13 November 1941, his Vichy government established the Fondation française pour l'etude des problèmes humains (Foundation for the study of human questions) also known as the Alexis Carrel foundation, after the Nobel prize-winner in medicine who headed it.