Population growth remains at a low level in France. According to the latest INSEE census, the result of which was made public this Thursday, December 19, France has 67,760,573 inhabitants as of 1is January 2022. Compared to 2016, the population increased by 0.3% per year, a rate similar to the period 2015-2021.
This represents a population increase of just over 203,000 inhabitants per year, the equivalent of the combined populations of Nancy and Roubaix.
The INSEE annual census is usually based on five-year collection cycles. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2021 census had to be postponed to 2022. Since last year, INSEE has offered a comparison over a six-year interval. The figures published this Thursday therefore concern the population change between 2016 and 2022.
The figures indicated for 2022 give the official populations which will come into force on January 1, 2025. These data are important for municipalities and have very concrete applications: they are used to assess equipment needs (schools, hospitals, etc.), to define the amount of State participation in the municipal budget, to determine the number of elected officials on the municipal council…
Read also: France now has 67,760,573 inhabitants
How has the population evolved in your municipality?
Here is the municipal population of the communes as of 1is January 2025. You can search for a specific municipality via the search engine:
Among the data to note in the evolution of municipal populations between 2016 and 2022, we note that Toulouse crossed the threshold of 500,000 inhabitants thanks to an average annual evolution of 1.2% which gave it more than 36,000 inhabitants over the period. Roubaix, Tourcoing and Nanterre are getting closer to the symbolic bar of 100,000 inhabitants.
Paris is seeing its population decrease with an average annual drop of 0.59%, which has caused it to lose 76,622 inhabitants between 2016 and 2022. Most cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants are seeing their population increase.
The highest average annual variation between 2016 and 2022 is for Ourdon, in the Hautes-Pyrénées, with an average increase of 18.72% per year. It is in fact a total gain of 9 inhabitants for the commune, which simply went from 5 to 14 inhabitants… The largest average annual drop is in Rouvroy-Riport, in Marne, which went from 10 inhabitants in 2016 to 3 inhabitants in 2022, i.e. – 18% per year.
Around twenty French communes have fewer than 10 inhabitants, not counting the six villages of the Meuse classified “dead for France” in 1914-1918, which have no inhabitants but appear in the list of 34,938 communes: Beaumont-en- Verdunois, Bezonvaux, Cumières-le-Mort-Homme, Fleury-devant-Douaumont, Haumont-près-Samogneux and Louvemont-Côte-du-Poivre.
Different trends
The dynamics vary from one territory to another. The map of France below shows the major trends. The municipalities which gain inhabitants are in warm tones (from yellow to red) and those which lose them in blue tones.
We are seeing large groups on the rise on the coast, as well as around large cities. The latter appear as yellow islands in the middle of the fabric of rural areas which appear blue. The metropolises of Bordeaux, Nantes, Toulouse and Montpellier are experiencing the strongest growth.
Muriel Barlet, head of the demography department at INSEE, emphasizes that“Conversely, Mulhouse and Paris are experiencing the largest relative decreases despite a favorable natural balance. In the capital, the excess of births over deaths does not compensate for the deficit of departures over arrivals”.
Large areas show pronounced population declines: the strip running from the north-east to the south-west of the country (the famous “diagonal of the void”), the center of Normandy, Central Brittany.
According to INSEE, the main explanation for the decline in population growth in France is the reduction in the natural balance, the gap between the number of deaths and the number of births. A study published at the beginning of the week precisely points to the lowest number of births in France. In areas losing inhabitants, the natural balance is negative: there are more deaths than births.
Net migration, the difference between arrivals and departures, is generally negative in the north of the country, and more often positive in the south of the country.
