# Histoires Morales: A French Dataset for Assessing Moral Alignment

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.17117 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.17117/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Human values and AI feedback alignment, one of 10 directions in LLM alignment / RLHF / preference optimisation.
- Builds on 25 of its 50 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 28 Jan 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM alignment / RLHF / preference optimisation / [Human values and AI feedback alignment](https://mlsanity.com/alignment/human-values-and-ai-feedback-alignment/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 25 of 25)

- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [The Llama 3 Herd of Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.21783/) (2024)
- [Exploring the Limits of Transfer Learning with a Unified Text-to-Text Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.10683/) (2019)
- [Direct Preference Optimization: Your Language Model is Secretly a Reward Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.18290/) (2023)
- [Measuring Massive Multitask Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.03300/) (2020)
- [Learning Phrase Representations using RNN Encoder-Decoder for Statistical Machine Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1406.1078/) (2014)
- [Fantastically Ordered Prompts and Where to Find Them: Overcoming Few-Shot Prompt Order Sensitivity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.08786/) (2021)
- [Aligning AI With Shared Human Values](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.02275/) (2020)
- [CrowS-Pairs: A Challenge Dataset for Measuring Social Biases in Masked Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.00133/) (2020)
- [Experts, Errors, and Context: A Large-Scale Study of Human Evaluation for Machine Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.14478/) (2021)
- [Can language models learn from explanations in context?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.02329/) (2022)
- [Challenges and Strategies in Cross-Cultural NLP](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.10020/) (2022)
- [Evaluating the Moral Beliefs Encoded in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.14324/) (2023)
- [Are All Languages Created Equal in Multilingual BERT?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.09093/) (2020)
- [CometKiwi: IST-Unbabel 2022 Submission for the Quality Estimation Shared Task](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.06243/) (2022)
- [Large Pre-trained Language Models Contain Human-like Biases of What is Right and Wrong to Do](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.11790/) (2021)
- [Prompting PaLM for Translation: Assessing Strategies and Performance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09102/) (2022)
- [Ethical Reasoning over Moral Alignment: A Case and Framework for In-Context Ethical Policies in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.07251/) (2023)
- [Leveraging GPT-4 for Automatic Translation Post-Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.14878/) (2023)
- [CroissantLLM: A Truly Bilingual French-English Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.00786/) (2024)
- [Ethical Reasoning and Moral Value Alignment of LLMs Depend on the Language we Prompt them in](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.18460/) (2024)
- [Speaking Multiple Languages Affects the Moral Bias of Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.07733/) (2022)
- [Social Bias Probing: Fairness Benchmarking for Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.09090/) (2023)
- [MoralDial: A Framework to Train and Evaluate Moral Dialogue Systems via Moral Discussions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.10720/) (2022)
- [Towards Theory-based Moral AI: Moral AI with Aggregating Models Based on Normative Ethical Theory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.11432/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [MOLE: Metadata Extraction and Validation in Scientific Papers Using LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.19800/) (2025)
- [Edustories: A Collection of Real-world Case Studies from Classroom Practices](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.20484/) (2026)
- [CultureMINE: Datasets and Methods for Improving the Cultural Capabilities of NLP Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.22494/) (2026)
- [NepPlural: A Human-Anchored Benchmark for Persona Annotation in Nepali Migration Discourse](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.15732/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Aligning language models with human values is crucial, especially as they become more integrated into everyday life. While models are often adapted to user preferences, it is equally important to ensure they align with moral norms and behaviours in real-world social situations. Despite significant progress in languages like English and Chinese, French has seen little attention in this area, leaving a gap in understanding how LLMs handle moral reasoning in this language. To address this gap, we introduce Histoires Morales, a French dataset derived from Moral Stories, created through translation and subsequently refined with the assistance of native speakers to guarantee grammatical accuracy and adaptation to the French cultural context. We also rely on annotations of the moral values within the dataset to ensure their alignment with French norms. Histoires Morales covers a wide range of social situations, including differences in tipping practices, expressions of honesty in relationships, and responsibilities toward animals. To foster future research, we also conduct preliminary experiments on the alignment of multilingual models on French and English data and the robustness of the alignment. We find that while LLMs are generally aligned with human moral norms by default, they can be easily influenced with user-preference optimization for both moral and immoral data.