From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about
the demographic features of the population of France, including
population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace,
economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects.
As of
January 1, 2011, 65,821,885 people live in the French Republic.[1]
63,136,180 of these live in metropolitan France,[2] whereas 2,685,705
live in the French overseas departments and territories.
At the
beginning of the 20th century, France's population was low compared to
its neighbours and to its past history. However, the country's
population sharply increased with the baby boom following World War II.
During the Trente Glorieuses (1945–1974), the country's reconstruction
and steady economic growth led to the labor-immigration of the 1960s,
when many employers found manpower in villages located in Southern
Europe and in the Maghreb (or North Africa). French law facilitated the
immigration of thousands of colons, ethnic or national French from
former colonies of North and West Africa, India and Indochina, to
mainland France. 1.6 million European pieds noirs migrated from Algeria,
Tunisia and Morocco.[3] In the 1970s, over 30,000 French colons left
Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime as the Pol Pot government
confiscated their farms and land properties. However, after the 1973
energy crisis, laws limiting immigration were passed. In addition, the
country's birth rate dropped significantly during this time.
Since the 1980s, France has continued being a country of mass immigration. Meanwhile, the national birth rate, after continuing to drop for a time, began to rebound in the 1990s and currently the country's fertility rate is close to the replacement level. In recent years, immigrants have accounted for one quarter of the population growth - a lower proportion than in most other European countries. According to an INSEE 2006 study, "The natural increase is close to 300,000 persons, a level that has not been reached in more than thirty years. Net migration is estimated at 93,600 persons, slightly more than in 2005."[4]
France was historically the largest nation of Europe. During the Middle Ages more than one quarter of Europe’s population was French; during the 17th century it was still one fifth.
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.[original research?] France was often perceived as a country facing irrecoverable decline.[citation needed] 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 French Canada, whose population was rapidly growing at this time.
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 does not take into account the fact that a large chunk of Germany's population growth was siphoned off by emigration to the Americas, and suffered much larger military and civilian losses during the World Wars than France did. If France's population had grown at the same rate as England and Wales (whose rate was also siphoned off by emigration to the Americas, Australia and New Zealand), France's population could be anywhere up to 150 million today. And if one starts the comparison at the time of King Louis XIV (the Sun King), then France would in fact have the same population as the United States. While France had been very powerful in Europe at the time of Louis XIV or Napoleon, the demographic decline the country experienced after 1800 resulted in it losing this advantage.
After World War II
After 1945 however, France suddenly underwent a demographic recovery. 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 most other countries of the Western World (the United States being one of the few exceptions). 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.
Since 1975, France's population growth rate has significantly diminished, but it still remains slightly faster than that of the rest of Europe, and much faster than it was at the end of the 19th century and during the first half of the 20th century. In the first decade of the third millennium, population growth in France is the fastest of Europe, matched only by Ireland and the Netherlands. However, it is slower than that of the United States, largely because of the higher net migration rate of the USA.
The following list shows the past, present, and future weight of France's population in Europe and in the world:
(historical populations are counted in the 2011 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 1909, metropolitan France was the third most populous country of Europe, behind Russia and Germany
between 1909 and 1933, metropolitan France was the fourth most populous country of Europe, behind Russia, Germany, and the United Kingdom
between 1933 and 1991, metropolitan France was the fifth most populous country of Europe, behind Russia, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Italy
between 1991 and 2000, metropolitan France recovered its rank as the fourth most populous country of Europe, behind Russia, Germany, and the United Kingdom
since 2000, 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.
In 2005 it was expected that current demographic trends continuing (i.e. declining population in Germany, and slightly rising population in France and the UK), around 2050 metropolitan France could again surpass the population of Germany, becoming the most populous state in the European Union.[5] But more recent (2009) UN projections say that the stronger-growing United Kingdom could be more populous than metropolitan France in 2050, leaving metropolitan France third amongst European nations, behind Russia and the UK,[6] but the entire French Republic will remain more populated than the UK.[7]
Note that in the above list, Turkey is not regarded as a European country. Turkey was less populous than metropolitan France until 1992, and has been more populous since then.[8]
[edit] Vital statistics[9]
Average population (x 1000) Live births Deaths Natural change Crude birth rate (per 1000) Crude death rate (per 1000) Natural change (per 1000)
1901 40 710 917 075 825 315 91 760 22.5 20.3 2.3
1902 40 810 904 434 801 379 103 055 22.2 19.6 2.5
1903 40 910 884 498 794 566 89 932 21.6 19.4 2.2
1904 41 000 877 091 802 536 74 555 21.4 19.6 1.8
1905 41 050 865 604 812 338 53 266 21.1 19.8 1.3
1906 41 100 864 745 820 051 44 694 21.0 20.0 1.1
1907 41 100 829 632 830 871 -1 239 20.2 20.2 0.0
1908 41 190 848 982 784 415 64 567 20.6 19.0 1.6
1909 41 240 824 739 792 798 31 941 20.0 19.2 0.8
1910 41 350 828 140 737 877 90 263 20.0 17.8 2.2
1911 41 420 793 506 813 653 -20 147 19.2 19.6 -0.5
1912 41 530 801 642 726 848 74 794 19.3 17.5 1.8
1913 41 620 795 851 736 937 58 914 19.1 17.7 1.4
1914 41 630 757 931 774 931 -17 000 18.2 18.6 -0.4
1915 40 620 482 968 747 968 -265 000 11.9 18.4 -6.5
1916 40 020 384 676 697 676 -313 000 9.6 17.4 -7.8
1917 39 420 412 744 712 744 -300 000 10.5 18.1 -7.6
1918 38 670 472 816 867 816 -395 000 12.2 22.4 -10.2
1919 38 600 506 960 739 901 -232 941 13.1 19.2 -6.0
1920 38 900 838 137 675 676 162 461 21.5 17.4 4.2
1921 39 140 816 555 697 904 118 651 20.9 17.8 3.0
1922 39 310 764 373 692 322 72 051 19.4 17.6 1.8
1923 39 750 765 888 670 326 95 562 19.3 16.9 2.4
1924 40 170 757 873 683 296 74 577 18.9 17.0 1.9
1925 40 460 774 455 712 211 62 244 19.1 17.6 1.5
1926 40 710 771 690 716 966 54 724 19.0 17.6 1.3
1927 40 770 748 102 679 809 68 293 18.3 16.7 1.7
1928 40 880 753 570 678 269 75 301 18.4 16.6 1.8
1929 41 020 734 140 742 732 -8 592 17.9 18.1 -0.2
1930 41 340 754 020 652 953 101 067 18.2 15.8 2.4
1931 41 550 737 611 682 816 54 795 17.8 16.4 1.3
1932 41 510 726 299 663 705 62 594 17.5 16.0 1.5
1933 41 520 682 394 664 133 18 261 16.4 16.0 0.4
1934 41 570 681 518 637 713 43 805 16.4 15.3 1.1
1935 41 550 643 870 661 722 -17 852 15.5 15.9 -0.4
1936 41 500 634 344 645 844 -11 500 15.3 15.6 -0.3
1937 41 530 621 453 632 896 -11 443 15.0 15.2 -0.3
1938 41 560 615 582 650 832 -35 250 14.8 15.7 -0.8
1939 41 510 615 599 645 677 -30 078 14.8 15.6 -0.7
1940 40 690 561 281 740 281 -179 000 13.8 18.2 -4.4
1941 39 420 522 261 675 261 -153 000 13.2 17.1 -3.9
1942 39 220 575 261 656 261 -81 000 14.7 16.7 -2.1
1943 38 860 615 780 626 780 -11 000 15.8 16.1 -0.3
1944 38 770 629 878 666 878 -37 000 16.2 17.2 -1.0
1945 39 660 645 899 643 899 2 000 16.3 16.2 0.1
1946 40 287 843 904 545 880 298 024 20.9 13.5 7.4
1947 40 679 870 472 538 157 332 315 21.4 13.2 8.2
1948 41 112 870 836 513 210 357 626 21.2 12.5 8.7
1949 41 480 872 661 573 598 299 063 21.0 13.8 7.2
1950 41 829 862 310 534 480 327 830 20.6 12.8 7.8
1951 42 156 826 722 565 829 260 893 19.6 13.4 6.2
1952 42 460 822 204 524 831 297 373 19.4 12.4 7.0
1953 42 752 804 696 556 983 247 713 18.8 13.0 5.8
1954 43 057 810 754 518 892 291 862 18.8 12.1 6.8
1955 43 428 805 917 526 322 279 595 18.6 12.1 6.4
1956 43 843 806 916 545 700 261 216 18.4 12.4 6.0
1957 44 311 816 467 532 107 284 360 18.4 12.0 6.4
1958 44 789 812 215 500 596 311 619 18.1 11.2 7.0
1959 45 240 829 249 509 114 320 135 18.3 11.3 7.1
1960 45 684 819 819 520 960 298 859 17.9 11.4 6.5
1961 46 163 838 633 500 289 338 344 18.2 10.8 7.3
1962 46 998 832 353 541 147 291 206 17.7 11.5 6.2
1963 47 816 868 876 557 852 311 024 18.2 11.7 6.5
1964 48 310 877 804 520 033 357 771 18.2 10.8 7.4
1965 48 758 865 688 543 696 321 992 17.8 11.2 6.6
1966 49 164 863 527 528 782 334 745 17.6 10.8 6.8
1967 49 548 840 568 543 033 297 535 17.0 11.0 6.0
1968 49 915 835 796 553 441 282 355 16.7 11.1 5.7
1969 50 318 842 245 573 335 268 910 16.7 11.4 5.3
1970 50 772 850 381 542 277 308 104 16.7 10.7 6.1
1971 51 251 881 284 554 151 327 133 17.2 10.8 6.4
1972 51 701 877 506 549 900 327 606 17.0 10.6 6.3
1973 52 118 857 186 558 782 298 404 16.4 10.7 5.7
1974 52 460 801 218 552 551 248 667 15.3 10.5 4.7
1975 52 699 745 065 560 353 184 712 14.1 10.6 3.5
1976 52 909 720 395 557 114 163 281 13.6 10.5 3.1
1977 53 145 744 744 536 221 208 523 14.0 10.1 3.9
1978 53 376 737 062 546 916 190 146 13.8 10.2 3.6
1979 53 606 757 354 541 805 215 549 14.1 10.1 4.0
1980 53 880 800 376 547 107 253 269 14.9 10.2 4.7
1981 54 182 805 483 554 823 250 660 14.9 10.2 4.6
1982 54 492 797 223 543 104 254 119 14.6 10.0 4.7
1983 54 772 748 525 559 655 188 870 13.7 10.2 3.4
1984 55 026 759 939 542 490 217 449 13.8 9.9 4.0
1985 55 284 768 431 552 496 215 935 13.9 10.0 3.9
1986 55 577 778 468 546 926 231 542 14.0 9.8 4.2
1987 55 824 767 828 527 466 240 362 13.8 9.4 4.3
1988 56 118 771 268 524 600 246 668 13.7 9.3 4.4
1989 56 423 765 473 529 283 236 190 13.6 9.4 4.2
1990 56 709 762 407 526 201 236 206 13.4 9.3 4.2
1991 56 976 759 056 524 685 234 371 13.3 9.2 4.1
1992 57 240 743 658 521 530 222 128 13.0 9.1 3.9
1993 57 467 711 610 532 263 179 347 12.4 9.3 3.1
1994 57 659 710 993 519 965 191 028 12.3 9.0 3.3
1995 57 844 729 609 531 618 197 991 12.6 9.2 3.4
1996 58 026 734 338 535 775 198 563 12.7 9.2 3.4
1997 58 207 726 768 530 319 196 449 12.5 9.1 3.4
1998 58 398 738 080 534 005 204 075 12.6 9.1 3.5
1999 58 661 744 791 537 661 207 130 12.7 9.2 3.5
2000 59 049 774 782 530 864 243 918 13.1 9.0 4.1
2001 59 477 770 945 531 073 239 872 13.0 8.9 4.0
2002 59 894 761 630 535 144 226 486 12.7 8.9 3.8
2003 60 304 761 464 552 339 209 125 12.6 9.2 3.5
2004 60 735 767 816 509 429 258 387 12.6 8.4 4.3
2005 61 182 774 355 527 533 246 822 12.7 8.6 4.0
2006 61 586 796 896 516 416 280 480 12.9 8.4 4.6
2007 61 939 785 985 521 016 264 969 12.7 8.4 4.3
2008 62 278 796 044 533 000 263 044 12.8 8.6 4.2
2009 62 621 793 420 538 116 255 304 12.7 8.6 4.1
2010 (e) 62 965 796 000 535 000 261 000 12.6 8.5 4.1
e=first estimate
Ethnic groups
The modern ethnic French are the descendants of Celts, Iberians, Ligurians and Greeks in southern France,[10][11] later mixed with large group of Germanic peoples arriving at the end of the Roman Empire such as the Franks the Burgundians, Alamanni and Goths[12] , very small portions of Moors and Saracens in the south,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19] and Scandinavians, Vikings who became the Normans and settled mostly in Normandy in the 9th century.[20][21]
It is illegal for the French state to collect data on ethnicity and race, a law with its origins in the 1789 revolution and reaffirmed in the constitution of 1958.[22] Some organizations, such as the Representative Council of Black Associations (French: Conseil représentatif des associations noires de France, CRAN), have argued in favour of the introduction of data collection on minority groups but this has been resisted by other organizations and ruling politicians,[23][24] often on the grounds that collecting such statistics goes against France's secular principles and harks back to Vichy-era identity documents.[25] During the 2007 presidential election, however, Nicolas Sarkozy was polled on the issue and stated that he favoured the collection of data on ethnicity.[26] Part of a parliamentary bill which would have permitted the collection of data for the purpose of measuring discrimination was rejected by the Conseil Constitutionnel in November 2007.[22]
An estimated thirteen million residents of France, or about one-fifth of the population, are of ethnic or national non-French origins. Of European ethnic groups not indigenous to France, the most numerous are people of Italian family origin and it is estimated that about 5 million citizen (8% of the population) are at least partly of Italian origin if their parentage is retraced over three generations.[27] This is due to waves of Italian immigration, notably during the late 19th century and early 20th century. Other large European groups of non-native origin are Spaniards, Portuguese, Polish, and Greeks. Also, due to more recent immigration, a total of five million Arab-Berber people and approximately 500,000 Turks inhabit France.[citation needed] An influx of North African Jews immigrated to France in the 1950s and after the Algerian War due to the decline of the French empire. Subsequent waves of immigration followed the Six-Day War, when some Moroccan and Tunisian Jews settled in France. Hence, by 1968, North African Jews were about 500,000 and the majority in France. As these new immigrants were already culturally French they needed little time to adjust to French society. Black people come from both the French overseas territories and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Nice, France: Promenade, Museums, and Coast
US, FRANCE ANGERED BY EMBASSY ATTACK IN SYRIA CCTV News
France population, France facts, population, french population, france population 2011, population france, france population 2010, france government, france s population, facts about france, paris france population, population pyramid, france information, population growth, population pyramids .
