麻豆传媒映画

For the first time in 80 years France had more people die in 2024 than there were babies born, meaning politicians will have to make strategic choices about how they want the country to develop.

Official figures from the state statistics agency Insee had the country with 651,000 registered deaths and 650,000 births in 2024.

The population of France at the start of August was given by Insee as 68.61 million, and it is expected to reach more than 70 million in the next two decades due to immigration.

A researcher associated with the institute national d鈥檈tudes d茅mographiques, and professor at the university of Strasbourg, Didier Breton, told The Connexion that there had been a fall in the number of births since around 2010, as the ongoing financial crisis started to bite.

At the same time the number of people dying started to rise 鈥� and is likely to continue to rise as 鈥榖aby boomers鈥� born between 1945 and 1973 reach 80 years old.

'France has not chosen a strategy'

鈥淲hat is interesting is that among developed nations who were affected by this decline in natural populations before France, we can see two different models,鈥� said Prof Breton.

鈥淚n Germany and Spain the fall in the native population has been compensated by immigration, while in Japan there has been very little immigration but massive investment in high technology so that older workers are more productive and have technology to help them at home.鈥�

He said in France the politicians had not yet decided on one strategy or another.

鈥淭hey still think that the existing policies of encouraging people to have more babies are the solution, but the long term trends are not in their favour.

鈥淵ou cannot force people to have children if they do not want them.鈥�

Demographic experts think there might be an uptick in births in France as children born in September 2000 reach their mid 20s and early 30s.

In that year a baby boom followed days of long power cuts which affected much of the south of the country after great storms at the turn of the year.

But after that the long term trend is likely to continue.

Professor Breton said a complicating factor was the fact that there are many European countries, as well as the United States and Canada where there are, or soon will be, more deaths than births.

鈥淎t the same time there has been a significant drop in the number of births in the countries of the south, which have traditionally supplied many migrants,鈥� he said.

鈥淪o, effectively you will have countries competing with each other to attract the fewer migrants they need, especially if they want to see more factories needing more labour so you can have a Made in France or a Made in the USA label on them.

鈥淎nd at the moment the political discourse in France is largely anti-immigration 鈥� it is a paradox.鈥�

On the ground the shift from more births to more deaths is likely to see a shift of resources from things like schools, to more support for the elderly, but it is not likely to be a smooth process.

鈥淚n demographics we can see things like a population bubble moving through the age groups from a long time ahead, but the politicians work to a short time table,鈥� Professor Breton said.

鈥淭he negative count we see now for the first time in many years will only have its first significant effects in 15 to 20 years, as the children born now start to think of what work they want to do as adults.鈥�