France recorded more deaths than births in 2025, as the country’s fertility rate dropped to 1.56 children per woman. It is the first time that births have outstripped deaths since the end of World War II.
The national statistics institute INSEE reported 651,000 deaths last year and 645,000 births, with the number of births – already in decline – in freefall since the global COVID lockdowns.
“Although the reversal of the natural balance trend was expected, it nonetheless represents a real turning point, and it should come as a wake-up call for political leaders,” Le Monde said.
While France’s fertility rate rose in the early 2000s, it has been dropping steadily since 2010 and reached 1.6 children per woman in 2024, data from INSEE shows. While fertility rates amongst native French women has fallen, it has also been shown that over time and across generations, the fertility patterns of immigrants and their descendants tend to converge with those of the native population, demographic researchers say.
INSEE also reported that despite deaths outnumbering births, France’s population grew slightly last year to 69.1 million, due to net migration, estimated at 176,000.
The collapse in birth rates means that the demographic advantage France has held over other European Union nations has dissipated, the official figures show. The fertility rate of 1.56 children per woman is well below the 1.8 that had been assumed by the pension advisory council in making pension funding forecasts.
Given the birth rate crunch across Europe, in 2023, the most recent year of complete data for EU comparisons, France had the second highest fertility rate in the bloc, scoring 1.65 children per woman, behind Bulgaria which had a fertility rate that year of 1.81. Bulgaria’s fertility rate hit a historic low of 1.09 in 1997, and is expected to come in at 1.72 for 2024.
Reports last year from the Académie Nationale de Médecine in France and INED (French institute for demographic studies), said that the total number of births has been steadily falling since 2010 in mainland France, noting at that time that in 2024, a historic low was recorded with 663,000 babies – with a further fall now recorded in 2025 to 645,000 births.
The reports looked at economic factors including unemployment, uncertainty for the future, and rising housing costs which make it more difficult to acquire a larger home to house an additional child.
A study by the HCFEA (High Council for the Family, Childhood and Age) reports a statistical link between birth rate and the level of public expenditure for families (measured as a percentage of GDP, (Gross Domestic Product), the Alliance Vita group noted.
According to a mission by IGAS (General Inspectorate for Social Affairs) taken up by the Academy of Medicine : “France devoted 3.6 % of its GDP to families in 2017, the highest rate recorded in the OECD. However, in 2021, that figure had dropped to 2.2 %, which is less than the average for the European Union (2.4 %)”.
It also noted that “eco-anxiety, and more generally the climate of uncertainty and anxiety linked to geopolitics and the future of democracy are factors contributing to the drop in fertility quoted in both reports.”
The INED noted a link between the overall anxiety and the projections on the number of children desired. “For equal characteristics, 35 % of 25-39 year-olds who are very concerned about the prospects for future generations intend “probably” or “definitely” to have a child (or an additional child) compared with 46 % of those who are less concerned. They also wish to have 0.11 children less“.
Vita observed in both reports a concentration on “the persistent shortfall between desire and achievement”.
The INED study noted that: “The fall in fertility intentions is much more marked for young adults under the age of 30 : the total number of children desired has reduced by 0.6 children on average in 20 years. It has fallen from 2.5 to 1.9 children desired by women and from 2.3 to 1.8 for men. As for all adults, half of young couples between 18 and 29 aspire to having exactly 2 children, but those wanting “0 or 1” now exceed those wanting “3 or more”, which was the other way round in 2005″.
However, it said that these figures “are in opposition with the vision by the Medicine Academy which, in its report suggests that”:
“The generation born between 2000 and 2012, resulting from a mini-boom in birth rate represents a hope of recovery. In the 2030 – 2040 time-frame, it will represent a numerous cohort of individuals of child-bearing age. If conditions are satisfied – stable job, accessible housing, true man/woman equality, parenthood support, consideration of eco-anxiety – this generation could reverse the trend“.
The survey conducted by INED also points out the role of the so-called “egalitarian” concept on a lesser fertility intention, Vita said. “In 2024, the participants, irrespective of their sex, who have an egalitarian conception of the roles of men and women in society exhibit lesser fertility intentions, whereas that conception had no effect in 2005“.