Infanticide in the French Press: 347 Suspicious Deaths from 1993 to 2012

Nowadays infanticide is rare, resulting in it being difficult to collect court data. Press articles were analysed over a twenty year period in order to exploit the media coverage around those cases, resulting in 357 suspicious neonatal deaths from 1993 to 2012. Five phenomena were noted. First, the circumstances of the discovery of the corpses were important throughout the judicial process. Secondly, these cases received high media coverage and during this period we witnessed the removal of anonymity and the end of the presumption of innocence. Thirdly, French courts historically chose not to incriminate fathers. Fourthly, the Courjault case saw the start of a spate of cases where there was denial of pregnancy as an explanation before its use almost disappeared in the later part of the period. Finally, the mothers’ explanations and their personalities had a determining influence on sentence.