ABSTRACT
The heat wave's devastating effects for an aging population provoked an extensive debate about the place of the elderly in French society. For nationalist demographers and politicians in the postwar era, aging threatened the vitality of the population. For nationalist demographers, and politicians consequently, by growing older and withdrawing from productive activity, the elderly became a drain on a society desperate for economic recovery from the War; as parents of too few children, they bore responsibility for the nation's depopulation. In 1960 the Haut-Comité Consultatif de la Famille et de la Population (HCPF) established the "Commission d'étude des problèmes de la vieillesse", directed by Pierre Laroque. The project represented a massive expansion of social citizenship that targeted the elderly for state intervention. The Laroque Commission concluded with extensive policy recommendations, many of which the state implemented in the decades to follow. By the summer of 2003, most of Cribier's initial cohort had died: only 145 remained.
