The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement which dominated the world of ideas in Europe in the 18th century. The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy, and came to advance ideals such as liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state. In France, the central doctrines of les Lumières were individual liberty and religious tolerance in opposition to an absolute monarchy and the fixed dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church. The Enlightenment was marked by an emphasis on the scientific method and reductionism along with increased questioning of religious orthodoxy - an attitude captured by the phrase Sapere aude, "Dare to know".
The Second World War was the event that shook the world in those years. France was a country involved in the conflict and the forces of the axis caused many deaths between 1939 and 1945. Many of those deaths were men, regardless of age. For this reason, there is clearly a general decline of men in the pyramid population of France in the 50s.
