Reflecting on the French system of military prostitution known as Bordels Militaires de Campagne (BMC, Mobile Field Brothels) during the First World War, Dr. Léon Bizard wrote in his memoirs (1925): It was a mêlée, a hard, dangerous, and disgusting business. Fifty, sixty, up to a hundred men of all colors and races to relieve…
Author: Marie Robin
Marie Robin is pursuing a Ph.D. in history at Columbia University where she studies gender, race, sexuality, and military culture in the 20th-century French Empire.
Her doctoral dissertation assesses the transformation of the French military’s management of sex during the First Indochina War (1946-54) and the Algerian War (1954-62) and its impact on broader processes of decolonization. In particular, the dissertation examines the French system of military prostitution known as Bordel Militaire de Campagne (Mobile Field Brothels), sanctioned by the French government for its troops and sustained by the sexual labor of indigenous women and girls. Marie holds a BA in History and Middle-Eastern Studies from the American University of Paris and an MA in History from Durham University.