Demographics of France

Since prehistoric times, France has been a crossroads of trade, migrations, and invasions. Four basic European ethnic stocks - pre-Celtic, Celtic (Gallic and Breton), Latin, and Germanic (Franks, Visigoths, Burgundians, Vikings) - have blended over the centuries to make up its present population. Besides these “historic” populations, new populations have migrated to France since the 19th century: Belgians, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Poles, Armenians, Jews from Eastern Europe and the Maghreb, Arabs and Berbers from the Maghreb, Black Africans, and Chinese people, to list only the most prominent.

It is currently estimated that about 40% of the French population descends in varying amounts from these different waves of migrations, making France the most ethnically diverse country of Europe, despite the still popular stereotypes of France as an essentially Gallic country. Nevertheless, the immigrants from other European countries have an easier time blending in, while the non-European groups tend to assimilate at a slower pace, because of greater cultural barriers and social discrimination.

Population

Starting with the 19th century, the historical evolution of the population in France has been extremely atypical in the Western World. Unlike the rest of Europe, France did not experience a strong population growth in the 19th century and first half of the 20th century. On the other hand, it experienced a much stronger growth in the second half of the 20th century than the rest of Europe or indeed its own growth in the previous centuries.

After 1974, France’s population growth stalled, and reached its nadir in the 1990s with only 0.39% annual growth, being now more in tune with the rest of Europe, which has entered demographic decline. However, first results from the 2004 French census have greatly surprised demographers. The census revealed that population growth rebounded significantly after the 1999 census, something nobody had anticipated. From 1999 to 2003, annual population growth was 0.58%. In 2004, population growth was 0.68%, almost reaching North American levels. 2004 was the year with the highest increase in French population since 1974.

France is now well ahead of all other European countries (except for the Republic of Ireland). In 2003, France’s natural population growth (excluding immigration) was responsible for almost all the natural growth in European population: the population of the European Union increased by 216,000 inhabitants (without immigration), of which 211,000 was the increase in France’s population alone, and 5,000 was the increase in all the other countries of the EU combined. In 2004 the natural increase in France’s population reached 256,000, but figures for other European countries are not available yet.

These unexpected results bear great consequences for the future. At the moment, France is the third most populous country of Europe, behind Russia and Germany. By 2050, demographers initially thought the population of metropolitan France would be 64 million inhabitants, but they now agree that their estimates were too conservative, being based on the 1990s growth rate of population. Demographers now estimate that by 2050 metropolitan France’s population will be 75 million, at which time it will be the most populated country of the European Union, above Germany (71 million), the United Kingdom (59 million), and Italy (43 million) ([7], [8], [9]). If these estimates become reality, it may fundamentally alter the balance of power in Brussels. It would be the first time since the 1860s that France is the nation with the largest population within Europe (Russia excluded). In mid-2004 the EU had 460 million inhabitants, 13.6% of whom were living in France (including overseas departements). By 2050 it is estimated that the population of the European Union (of the current 25 members) will have declined to 445 million inhabitants, of whom 17.5% will be living in France.

According to the UNHCR, the number of people seeking political asylum in France rose by around 3 % between 2003 and 2004, while in the same period, the number of asylum applications submitted in the United States fell by about 29 %. France thereby replaced the United States as the world’s top destination for asylum-seekers in 2004.

A perennial political issue concerns rural depopulation. Over the period 1960-1999 fifteen rural departements experienced a decline in population. In the most extreme case, the population of Creuse fell by 24%.

Languages

The sole official language of France is French. However, several regional languages (including Alsatian, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Corsican, Flemish, Franco-Provençal dialects, Gascon, Lorraine German dialect, Norman, Occitan, and some Oïl dialects - e.g., Picard) are also occasionally understood and spoken, mostly by elderly people. Also several creole languages are spoken in overseas departments. However, the French government and state school system discouraged the use of any of those languages until recently. These historical regional languages have been known as patois, though this has been considered depreciative. They are now taught at some schools, though French remains the only official language in use by the government, local or national. Some languages spoken by immigrants are also frequently spoken, especially in large cities: Portuguese, Maghreb Arabic, several Berber languages, several languages of Sub-Saharan Africa, Turkish, several spoken variants of Chinese (most notably Wu, Cantonese, Min Nan, and Mandarin), Vietnamese, and Khmer are the most frequently spoken.

Statistics

At the 1999 census, INSEE sampled 380,000 adult people all across Metropolitan France, and asked them questions about their family situation. One of the questions was about the languages that their parents spoke with them before the age of 5. This is the first time serious statistics were computed about the proportion of mother tongues in France. The results were published in Enquete familiale, Insee, 1999.

Here is a list of the nine most prominent mother tongues in France based on Enquete familiale. It is important to read the notes at the Languages of France article in order to correctly interpret the numbers.

Cities

The principal cities by population include:

Aix-en-Provence, Ajaccio, Albi, Amiens, Angers, Angouleme, Bastia, Belfort, Besançon, Bordeaux, Brest, Caen, Calais, Cannes, Carcassonne, Charleville-Mezieres, Clermont-Ferrand, Colmar, Dijon, Dunkerque, Evreux, Grenoble, La Rochelle, Le Havre, Le Mans, Lille, Limoges, Lyon, Marseille, Metz, Montpellier, Mulhouse, Nancy, Nantes, Nice, Nîmes, Orleans, Paris, Perpignan, Poitiers, Quimper, Reims, Rennes, Roubaix, Rouen, Saint-Etienne, Saint-Nazaire, Strasbourg, Tarbes, Toulon, Toulouse, Tourcoing, Tours and Valence.

Historical overview

Middle Ages to 20th century

Starting around 1800, the historical evolution of the population in France has been extremely atypical in the Western World. Unlike the rest of Europe, France did not experience a strong population growth in the 19th century and first half of the 20th century. The birth rate in France diminished much earlier than in the rest of Europe. Consequently, population growth was quite slow in the 19th century, and the nadir was reached in the first half of the 20th century when France, surrounded by the rapidly growing populations of Germany and the United Kingdom, experienced virtually zero growth.

This, and the bloody losses in France’s population due to the First World War, may explain the sudden collapse of France in 1940 during the Second World War. France was often perceived as a country irremediably on the decline. At the time, racist theories were quite popular, and the dramatic demographic decline of France was often attributed (particularly in Nazi Germany, and also in some conservative circles in England and elsewhere) to the genetic characteristics of the “French race”, a race destined to fail in the face of the Germanic and Anglo-Saxon “races”.

In addition, the slow growth of France’s population in the 19th century was reflected in the country’s very low emigration rate. While millions of people from all other parts of Europe moved to the Americas, few French did so. Most people in the United States of French extraction are descended from immigrants from rapidly-growing French Canada.

To better understand the demographic decline of France, it should be noted that France was historically the largest nation of Europe. During the 17th century one fifth of Europe’s population was French (and more than one quarter during the Middle Ages ). Between 1815 and 2000, if the population of France had grown at the same rate as the population of Germany during the same time period, France’s population would be 110 million today — and this doesn’t take into account the fact that a large chunk of Germany’s population growth was siphoned off by emigration to the Americas. If it had grown at the same rate as England and Wales (who were also siphoned off by emigration to the Americas), France’s population could be anywhere up to 150 million today. And if we start the comparison at the time of King Louis XIV (the Sun King), then France would have the same population as the United States! This helps understand why France was so powerful in Europe at the time of Louis XIV or Napoleon, and it shows how much of a demographic decline the country experienced after 1800.

After World War II

After 1945 however, France suddenly underwent a demographic recovery that no one could have foreseen. It is a fact that in the 1930s the French government, alarmed by the decline of France’s population, had passed laws to boost the birth rate, giving state benefits to families with children. Nonetheless, no one can quite satisfactorily explain this sudden and unexpected recovery in the demography of France, which was often portrayed as a “miracle” inside France. This demographic recovery was again atypical in the Western World, in the sense that although the rest of the Western World experienced a baby boom immediately after the war, the baby boom in France was much stronger, and above all it lasted longer than in the other countries of the Western World. In the 1950s and 1960s France enjoyed a population growth of 1% a year, which is the highest growth in the history of France, not even matched in the best periods of the 18th or 19th centuries.

After 1975, France’s population growth has significantly diminished, being more in tune with the rest of Europe, but it still remains slightly faster than in the rest of Europe, and much faster than in the end of the 19th century or the first half of the 20th century. At the turn of the millennium, population growth in France is the fastest of Europe, matched only by Ireland and the Netherlands. However, it is significantly slower than in North America, where population trends have diverged from Europe after the 1970s.

The ranking below will help understand the past, present, and future weight of France’s population in Europe and in the world:
(historical populations are counted in the 2004 borders)
until 1795 metropolitan France was the most populous country of Europe, above even Russia, and the third most populous country in the world, behind only China and India
between 1795 and 1866, metropolitan France was the second most populous country of Europe, behind Russia, and the fourth most populous country in the world, behind China, India, and Russia
between 1866 and 1911, metropolitan France was the third most populous country of Europe, behind Russia and Germany
between 1911 and 1931, metropolitan France was the fourth most populous country of Europe, behind Russia, Germany, and the United Kingdom
between 1931 and 1991, metropolitan France was the fifth most populous country of Europe, behind Russia, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Italy
between 1991 and 1997, metropolitan France recovered its rank as the fourth most populous country of Europe, behind Russia, Germany, and the United Kingdom
since 1997, metropolitan France has recovered its rank as the third most populous country of Europe, behind Russia and Germany. Worldwide, France’s ranking has fallen to twentieth most populous country.
if current demographic trends continue (i.e. declining population in Germany, and slightly rising population in France), around 2050 metropolitan France could become again the second most populous country of Europe behind Russia

Note that in above data, Turkey is not regarded as an European country. If Turkey would be regarded as an European country, France would be the fourth most populous country of Europe. In 2050 it would be then the third most populous country of Europe.

Immigration

Before World War II

In the twentieth century, France exhibited a high rate of immigration. Immigration was particularly high in the 1920s and 1930s. France was the European country which suffered the most from World War I, with respect to the size of its population, losing 1.4 million young men out of a total population of 40 million.

France was also at the time the European country with the lowest fertility rate, which meant that the country had a very hard time recovering from the heavy losses of the war. France had to open its doors to immigration, which was the only way to prevent population decline between the two world wars. At the time France was the only European country with mass immigration. The other European countries, such as the UK or Germany, still had high fertility rates, and did not need immigrants. The majority of immigrants in the 1920s and 1930s came from southern Europe: Italians and Spaniards (fleeing the Spanish civil war) but also Poles and Armenians.

After World War II

After World War II, the French fertility rate rebounded considerably, as was explained above, but economic growth in France was so high that new immigrants had nonetheless to be brought into the country. This time the majority of immigrants were Portuguese as well as Arabs and Berbers from North Africa. The first wave arrived in the 1950s, but the major arrivals happened in the 1960s and 1970s. More than 1 million people from the Maghreb immigrated in the 1960s and early 1970s from North Africa, especially Algeria (following the end of French rule there) [citation needed]. One million European pieds noirs also migrated from Algeria in 1962 and the following years, due to the chaotic independence of Algeria [citation needed].

In the late 1970s, due to the end of high economic growth in France, immigration policies were considerably tightened, starting with the Pasqua laws. New immigrants were allowed only through the family reunion schemes (wives and children moving to France to live with their husband or father already living in France), or as political asylum seekers. Illegal immigration thus developed. Nonetheless, immigration rates in the 1980s and 1990s were much lower than in the 1960s and 1970s, especially compared to other European countries. The regions of emigrations also widened, with new immigrants now coming from Black Africa, South-East Asia, and more recently mainland China.

Today

As a result of a century of immigration, it is estimated that there are less than 4 million persons of Muslim descent living in France (see also Islam in France), although many do not actually practice their religion - and that statistics can’t directly measure this. According to Michele Tribalat, researcher at INED, it is very difficult estimating the number of French immigrants or born to immigrants, because of the absence of official statistics. Only three tentatives, in 1927, 1942 and 1986 were done. According to this 2004 study, among approximatively 14 millions persons of foreign ascendency (immigrants or with at least one parent or great-parent immigrant), 5,2 millions are from South-European ascendency (Italy, Spain, Portugal), and 3 millions come from the Maghreb.

In the 2000s, the net migration rate was estimated to be 0.66 migrants per 1,000 population and year. This is a very low rate of immigration compared to other European countries, the USA or Canada. Since the beginning of the 1990s, France has been attempting to enforce a “zero immigration” policy, first with the Pasqua laws, followed by both right-wing and socialist-issued laws. The immigration rate is currently lower than in other European countries such as United Kingdom and Spain; however, some say it is doubtful that the policies in themselves account for such a change.

Again, as in the 1920s and 1930s, France stands in contrast with the rest of Europe. Back in the 1920s and 1930s, when European countries had a high fertility rate, France had a low fertily rate and had to open its doors to immigration to avoid population decline. Today, it is the rest of Europe that has very low fertility rates, and countries like Germany or Spain avoid population decline only through immigration. In France, however, fertility rate is still quite high for European standards, in fact the highest in Europe after Ireland, and so most population growth is due to natural increase, unlike in the other European countries (except Italy).

For example, according to the UK Office for National Statistics, in the three years between July 2001 and July 2004 the population of the UK increased by 721,500 inhabitants, of which 242,800 (34%) was due to natural increase, and 478,500 (66%) to immigration.[3] According to INSEE, in the three years between January 2001 and January 2004 the population of Metropolitan France increased by 1,057,000 inhabitants, of which 678,000 (64%) was due to natural increase, and 379,500 (36%) to immigration.[4]

Religion and Race

Since the beginning of the Third Republic, France does not collect religious or “ethnic” data in census. A study of IFOP conducted in 2004 found that 44% declare that they do not believe in God, compared to 20% in 1947. Another study conducted by the CSA institute in 2003/4, on a base of 18,000 questioned, found that 27% declared themselves atheists, while 64.3% called themselves Roman Catholic (compared to 69% in 2001), and 8.7% (ca. 5 million) defined themselves as adherents of religions other than Roman Catholicism (rough estimates amount to Islam 3 to 5 million, Protestantism 1 million, Buddhism 0.60 million, Judaism 0.53 million, Orthodox Christianity 0.15 million in the early 2000s). However, those alleged numbers don’t detail an objective and effective religious activity (going to church, etc.) but only subjective definitions.