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Many of the issues at the heart of the current controversy over obstetrical violence were already being brought to light in 1970s France. This article focuses on the critiques developed and alternative experiments launched during this period in response to the spread of medical doctrines, norms, and practices deemed abusive. Our objective is to examine how the concept of non-violence was then designed, theorized and put into practice, the dynamics that it brought to the fore, and the multiple and varied conflicts that it provoked, particularly within the feminist movement.