“France is experiencing its second demographic transition” – Libération

Demographer Didier Breton looks back on the historic drop in births observed in 2023 in France. A basic trend tending to align our country with the European average.

The INSEE report on the birth rate in France, published Thursday November 14, shows a drop in births in 2023 compared to 2022. 677,800 babies were born in 2023, a decline of 6.6% in one year. Numbers “on an unprecedented scale” since the end of the baby boom in the mid-1970s, according to the Institute of Statistics. France is thus catching up with the current European trend, although until now it had the highest fertility rate on the continent, with an average of 1.68 children per woman in 2023.

For Didier Breton, associate researcher at the National Institute of Demographic Studies, specialist in the demographic situation and professor at the University of Strasbourg, “there was a dropout in 2023 […] who spared no environment, no age”.

What made 2023 so special?

This 6.6% decline is particular because it is widespread. It has affected all ages, backgrounds and geographic areas. Some couples did not want to conceive in 2022-2023. Perhaps they decided to postpone their project to the following year… But that does not mean that we will observe a rebound in 2024; simply, the decline will perhaps be less violent. This is called a calendar effect. Two things can explain this fall: people decided