BACKGROUND: Evidence-based policy-making to reduce perinatal health inequalities requires an accurate measure of social disparities. We aimed to evaluate the relevance of two municipality-level deprivation indices (DIs), the French-Deprivation-Index (FDep) and the French-European-Deprivation-Index (FEDI) in perinatal health through two key perinatal outcomes: preterm birth (PTB) and small-for-gestational-age (SGA). METHODS: We used two data sources: The French National Perinatal Surveys (NPS) and the French national health data system (SNDS). Using the former, we compared the gradients of the associations between individual socioeconomic characteristics (educational level and income) and "PTB and SGA" and associations between municipality-level DIs (Q1:least deprived; Q5:most deprived) and "PTB and SGA". Using the SNDS, we then studied the association between each component of the two DIs (census data, 2015) and "PTB and SGA". Adjusted odds ratios (aOR) were estimated using multilevel logistic regression with random intercept at the municipality level. RESULTS: In the NPS (N=26,238), PTB and SGA were associated with two individual socioeconomic characteristics: maternal educational level (≤ lower secondary school vs.≥ Bachelor's degree or equivalent, PTB: aOR=1.43 [1.22-1.68], SGA: (1.31 [1.61-1.49]) and household income (1 person per room) houses (1.63 [1.15-2.32]) with PTB only, and unskilled farm workers with SGA only (1.52 [1.29-1.79]). CONCLUSION: Some components of FDep and FEDI were less relevant than others for capturing ecological inequalities in PTB and SGA. Results varied for each DI and perinatal outcome studied. These findings highlight the importance of testing DI relevance prior to examining perinatal health inequalities, and suggest the need to develop DIs that are suitable for pregnant women.