Is the current fall in birth numbers in France exceptional?

Yes, it is fairly exceptional. If we exclude 2014, when Mayotte became a French department, and 2021, as the COVID-19 pandemic showed signs of receding, births have been falling in France for nearly 13 years. 663,000 children were born in France in 2024, approximately 170,000 fewer babies than in 2010 (-21%). The country’s total fertility rate stands at 1.62 children per woman, compared to 1.66 in 2023. Prior to that, France had also seen relatively long and intense periods of falling births; for example, 1988 to 1993, when they fell by 60,000 in 5 years. What’s exceptional this time is the extremely low number of births, the lowest since the post-war period, when France had nearly 30 million fewer people than now. It is virtually certain that birth numbers will begin rising again in the coming years because the considerable number of people born in France between 2000 and 2010 will be having children in the coming decade. But it is difficult to predict how big that rise will be: either the total fertility rate (TFR) will increase, as happened between 1994 and 2010, or fertility will remain below replacement level (1.7 children per woman in 2023) over the long term. Time will tell. 

The 2024 data are provisional.

Didier Breton, Nicolas Belliot, Magali Barbieri et al., Recent Demographic Trends in France 2024, Population, December 2024.

Hélène Thélot, En 2024, la fécondité continue de diminuer, l’espérance de vie se stabilise, Insee Première, n° 2033, janvier 2025

Didier Breton, John Tomkinson, Fécondité française : anatomie d’une chute, The Conversation, 14 février 2024 [FR]

Update: January 2025