For the first time since the end of the Second World War, France recorded more deaths than births in a single year. INSEE’s 2025 demographic report, published January 13, 2026, put the country’s natural balance at minus 6,000, a symbolic threshold that France had avoided even through the low-fertility decades that hit Germany and Italy far earlier. The gap that once separated France from its European neighbors is closing, and the data from the past two years shows exactly how fast.
What Makes France’s Demographic Pattern Distinctive?
France entered the 2020s as something of a European outlier. While Germany, Italy, and Spain had spent decades below replacement-level fertility, France maintained a total fertility rate near or above 2.0 children per woman as recently as 2014, the highest sustained rate among large EU economies. That gap has now narrowed sharply. INSEE recorded a fertility rate of 1.56 children per woman in 2025, down from 1.61 in 2024 and from 2.0 just over a decade earlier in 2014.
France’s population was estimated at 69.1 million on January 1, 2026, according to INSEE, up 0.25 percent from a year earlier, growth now driven almost entirely by immigration rather than by the natural increase that once defined the French model.
France’s Fertility Advantage Has Narrowed
The decline has been persistent rather than sudden. Births fell to 645,000 in 2025, down 2.1 percent from 2024 and the lowest annual total since the end of World War II for a fourth consecutive year. In mainland France alone, 611,000 births were recorded in 2025, the lowest figure since 1942. The 2025 total sits 24 percent below the 2010 peak of 832,000 mainland births, a decline concentrated in the past decade rather than spread evenly across a longer period.
France’s Births and Fertility, Selected Years
| Year | Births (France, all territories) | Total Fertility Rate | Natural Balance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 832,000 (mainland) | ~2.0 | strongly positive |
| 2014 | — | 2.0 | positive |
| 2023 | — | ~1.68 | positive |
| 2024 | 661,000 | 1.61 | positive |
| 2025 | 645,000 | 1.56 | −6,000 (negative) |
The pace of decline has itself been decelerating even as the trend continues: births fell 6.6 percent in 2023, 2.8 percent in 2024, and 2.3 percent in 2025, suggesting the steepest phase of the drop may be easing even though the underlying direction has not reversed.
Births, Deaths and Natural Population Change
Deaths rose to 651,000 in 2025, up 1.5 percent from 2024, a rise INSEE attributed partly to a severe winter influenza epidemic early in the year layered on top of a longer-running trend: deaths have climbed steadily since 2011 as France’s large baby-boom cohorts, born between 1946 and 1974, move into older age brackets where mortality risk rises. The combination of falling births and rising deaths produced the negative 6,000 natural balance for 2025, the first such deficit in France since the end of World War II.
Population growth of 0.25 percent for the year came entirely from net migration and other adjustments rather than from natural increase, a structural shift the French National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) has noted applies across the European Union as a whole: net migration, not births, is now the primary source of population growth for most of the continent.
Family Formation and the French Model
Part of what sustained French fertility for so long was earlier, more consistent family formation compared with neighboring countries, though even this pattern is now shifting. The average age at childbirth for women reached 31.2 years in 2025, up from 29.6 in 2005 and from 26.5 in 1977, a fifty-year trend of delayed parenthood that mirrors, if with a lag, patterns seen earlier in Germany, Italy, and Spain. The average age of fathers at childbirth rose similarly, from 32.6 in 2005 to 34.1 in 2025.
Completed-fertility data from INED offers a more nuanced picture than the annual snapshot: women born in 1975, who turned 50 in 2025 and have reached the end of their reproductive years, had 2.03 children on average across their lifetimes, essentially at replacement level.
Women born in 1985 have already had 1.96 children by the most recent measurement and are projected to reach at least 2.0 by the time they turn 50, matching the cohort a decade older. This distinction matters: the annual fertility rate of 1.56 reflects a single year’s birth pattern shaped heavily by delayed childbearing, while completed cohort fertility, the actual lifetime total, has held closer to replacement level for women now finishing their childbearing years.
Immigration and Population Growth
With natural increase now negative, immigration has become the sole source of French population growth, a dynamic INED researchers describe as consistent with the European Union overall. Eurostat’s “no migration” counterfactual projection, cited by INED, illustrates the stakes: under a scenario of zero net migration from 2025 onward, the EU-27 population would begin shrinking immediately, falling to 404 million by 2050, a loss of 46 million people, or 10 percent, in twenty-five years. France’s own trajectory tracks this broader European pattern rather than standing apart from it as it once did.
France’s Aging Population
Twenty-two percent of France’s population was aged 65 or older as of January 2026, nearly unchanged from the prior year but part of a longer upward trend tied to both rising life expectancy and the aging of the baby-boom generation. Life expectancy at birth reached 85.9 years for women and 80.3 years for men in 2025, among the higher figures in the European Union, a combination of longevity gains and falling fertility that is the standard demographic recipe for population aging worldwide.
How France Compares With Its Neighbors
France’s fertility rate of 1.56 in 2025 remains above Italy’s 1.14 and above Germany’s 1.38, but the gap that once set France apart from its neighbors by a wide margin has narrowed to a smaller one. Spain’s fertility, while also low, has been offset by immigration-driven population growth in a way that partially resembles what France is now beginning to experience: population growth reliant on migration rather than on the family formation dynamics that historically defined France’s relatively stronger fertility performance.
Fertility Rate Comparison, 2025
| Country | Total Fertility Rate | Natural Population Balance |
|---|---|---|
| France | 1.56 | Negative (−6,000 in 2025) |
| Germany | 1.38 | Negative since 1972 |
| Italy | 1.14 | Negative |
| Spain | ~1.1–1.2 | Negative, offset by migration |
Is France Moving Toward the Same Demographic Pattern?
The evidence from 2023 through 2025 points toward convergence rather than continued exception. France’s fertility decline has been faster in percentage terms over the past decade than the country’s historical pattern would have suggested, and the 2025 negative natural balance marks a genuine inflection point rather than a one-year anomaly, since it follows a decade of steadily rising deaths and falling births moving in the same direction simultaneously.
Whether France stabilizes near its current fertility level, continues to decline toward the sub-1.4 range seen in Germany and Italy, or partially reverses depends on factors, including housing costs, family policy, and economic conditions, that INED researchers explicitly decline to reduce to a single cause.
Conclusion
France spent decades as the demographic exception among Europe’s largest economies, sustaining fertility levels its neighbors had already left behind. The 2025 data marks the year that exception effectively ended: a negative natural balance for the first time since 1945, a fertility rate that has fallen by nearly a quarter of a child per woman in just over a decade, and population growth now entirely dependent on immigration. France has not caught up to Germany or Italy’s demographic position, but the gap that once defined its distinctiveness is closing faster than at any point in the postwar period.
Key Findings
- France recorded a negative natural population balance for the first time since the end of World War II in 2025, with 645,000 births against 651,000 deaths, a deficit of 6,000.
- Fertility fell to 1.56 children per woman in 2025, down from 2.0 as recently as 2014, though it remains above Germany’s 1.38 and well above Italy’s 1.14.
- Mainland France recorded 611,000 births in 2025, the lowest since 1942, and 24 percent below the 2010 peak.
- Completed cohort fertility for women born in 1975, now finished with childbearing, reached 2.03 children on average, close to replacement level, showing a gap between annual and lifetime fertility measures.
- Population growth of 0.25 percent in 2025 came entirely from net migration, with natural increase now negative, mirroring the pattern already established across the European Union as a whole.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Why has France historically had relatively high fertility?
France maintained earlier and more consistent family formation than many European neighbors for decades, supported by family policy, though this advantage has narrowed sharply since 2014 as fertility fell from around 2.0 to 1.56 by 2025.
2. Is France’s population still growing?
Yes, but only because of immigration. Natural increase, births minus deaths, turned negative in 2025 for the first time since World War II, meaning all 0.25 percent population growth came from net migration.
3. Is French fertility falling?
Yes. INSEE recorded a fertility rate of 1.56 children per woman in 2025, down from 1.61 in 2024 and from 2.0 in 2014, alongside four consecutive years of record-low annual birth totals.
4. What is France’s current population?
France’s population was estimated at 69.1 million as of January 1, 2026, according to INSEE.
5. Why did France’s natural balance turn negative in 2025?
Births fell to 645,000 while deaths rose to 651,000, partly due to a severe winter flu epidemic, but also reflecting a longer trend of rising deaths as France’s large baby-boom cohorts age and fertility continues declining.
6. How does France’s fertility compare with Germany and Italy?
France’s 1.56 in 2025 remains above Germany’s 1.38 and well above Italy’s 1.14, though the gap has narrowed considerably compared with a decade ago.
7. Is fertility falling equally across all age groups in France?
The average age at childbirth has risen to 31.2 years for women in 2025 from 26.5 in 1977, indicating that later childbearing, not just fewer children overall, is a significant part of the pattern; completed lifetime fertility for recent cohorts has held closer to replacement level than the annual rate suggests.
8. What role does immigration play in France’s population?
With natural increase now negative, immigration is the sole driver of France’s population growth, consistent with the pattern INED researchers describe across the European Union as a whole.
9. How does life expectancy factor into France’s demographic change?
Life expectancy reached 85.9 years for women and 80.3 years for men in 2025, among the higher levels in the EU; rising longevity combined with falling fertility is a central driver of France’s aging population, with 22 percent of residents aged 65 or older.
10. Is France converging with the rest of Europe demographically?
The trend since 2023 suggests convergence rather than continued exception: France’s fertility decline has accelerated, and the 2025 negative natural balance marks the same demographic milestone Germany passed decades earlier, though France’s fertility remains comparatively higher for now.
Sources
- Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE), Bilan démographique 2025, Insee Première No. 2087, January 2026
- INSEE, births and deaths data release, July 6, 2026
- French Institute for Demographic Studies (INED), “In France, as in Europe as a whole, net migration offsets the excess of deaths over births,” 2026
- Wikipedia, “Demographics of France,” citing INSEE data
- Xinhua, “France records first negative natural population balance since World War II,” January 14, 2026
