It was the first time since the end of the Second World War that France, with 69.1 million people, had fewer births than deaths, which was announced by Insee in a report published on 13th January, it said.

By 1 January 2026, according to Insee, France, the national statistics office, the population grew by 0.25 percent since last year.

However, this increase is not the first since 1944, and this time it is entirely credited to net migration -the change in the number of people entering the country, less the number of people leaving the country, which is estimated as +176,000 people.

The difference between births and deaths, or the natural population change, has now shifted to negative at -6,000 people. This scenario is attributed to two variables, namely, a decrease in births and an increase in deaths.

“What is remarkable is that in a few years, the balance of nature has come off as births are going down at a terrific rate,” which was shown in a press conference by Sylvie Le Minez, the head of demographic and social studies at Insee. The natural balance was only +200,000 people as recently as 2015.

Work, family life balance

France recorded a record low number of 645,000 babies born in 2025, that is 2.1 per cent less than the year before and the lowest figure since the Second World War. This is 24 percent less than the births in 2010, which is termed the last peak year.

The drop is attributed to the reduction in fertility, which is a measure of children per woman. The total fertility rate fell and is now at 1.56 children per woman, the lowest since the end of the First World War.

It is also a medium-term pattern: since 2010, this index has decreased, the figure being 2.02 children per woman in mainland France.

Demographers provide many reasons: people do not necessarily want to have a family, they have problems connected with stable employment or housing, or they do not want to start a family because of the necessity to balance work and family relations, and problems with the climate.

The fear of not being able to afford children was one of the primary obstacles to having children, and a recent citizen consultation organized as a parliamentary mission on declining birth rates revealed.

“Childcare costs us a fortune; it is 800 a month, we could not afford two kids,” Océane, 32, the mother of a three-year-old and an executive at a business in Marseille, said. Work, home, children, and I would not know how to cope with all of that simultaneously.

The reason is that at 37, Jessica is only going to have one child with her partner, mostly due to her age. The reason I did not get a family started until later in life is that we are living very well and really happy together, explains this Parisian who works in the communications field and is also concerned about the cost of raising children.

Meanwhile, Insee has seen an increase in mortality brought about by the high baby-booms growing to ages of increased mortality.

French deaths in 2025 were 651,000, which was 1.5 percent more than the number in the prior year. The increase is also attributed to the flu epidemic in winter, which Insee described as an epidemic that was especially virulent in January.

European statistics

France is the last of the major EU countries to fall into negative natural population growth in achieving this symbolic milestone.

The natural population balance (that is, excluding the United Kingdom until 2020) in the European Union became negative in 2015, according to the figures provided by Eurostat. The figure of deaths in the 27 member states of the EU since 2020 has been more than a million additional deaths every year compared to births.

Germany had never experienced fewer deaths than births since the reunification in 1990, and the natural balance of Italy became negative in 1993, Poland in 2013, and Spain in 2015, according to Eurostat.

According to the same source in 2024, five countries of the total population (excluding France) maintained a positive natural population balance, namely Ireland, Sweden, Cyprus, Luxembourg, and Malta. Denmark was at equilibrium.