Document conçu en Octobre 2018 dans le cadre du Comité de suivi de thèse pour l'année 2018-19.According to UN data (United Nations, 2009), Germans practice international adoption half as much as the French. However, German law is close to French law, and equally in line with international conventions. The strength of national stereotypes is such that it is tempting to attribute this difference in practice to systems of preference: attached to a biological and indigenous definition of filiation. Deprived of post-colonial relations, the Germans would be reluctant to resort to the fiction of full adoption, which would be more attractive to French-style universalism.The usefulness of historiographic and empirical research on German practices an...