Overview

• Between June 2024 and May 2025, France recorded 651 000 deaths compared with 650 000 births, marking the first negative natural balance since 1945.
• The country’s total fertility rate has fallen from 2.0 children per woman in 2014 to 1.6 in 2024, accompanied by an average age of first childbirth of 29 years.
• Daily deaths rose by 3.6 percent in the first five months of 2025 as the baby-boom cohort entered higher-mortality age brackets.
• The demographic inversion occurred roughly ten years earlier than the 2035 date projected by Insee in 2021.
• The government is reviewing measures including a revamped “congé de naissance” and enhanced infertility programs to support family formation.