New figures showing that the birthrate in France has declined for the third year in a row as the death rate increased, according to the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE).
The French birthrate continues to slump according to the newly published figures that show a decline from 1.92 children per woman in 2016 to 1.88 children per woman in 2017. France was able to add 233,000 more people to the overall population in 2017 due to mass migration and a birthrate that is still above the death rate, L’Express reports.
France saw 767,000 births in 2017, down 2.1 per cent from the previous year and 603,000 total deaths, which was an increase of 1.5 per cent from 2016.
Mass migration has also been at the forefront of France’s changing demographics and last year saw a net increase of 69,000 residents.
The number of traditional marriages is also slightly down going from 226,512 to 221,000 and the rate of same-sex marriages has also declined by 113 to around 7,000.
France, while still having one of the highest birthrates in Europe, continues to age as a population with those over the age of 65 making up almost a fifth of the population at 19.6 per cent compared to only 15 per cent 20 years ago.
France’s neighbour Germany has also seen population growth over the last year but it has been solely driven by mass migration as unlike France, the number of deaths far outweigh the number of births.
In 2016, Germany saw a population increase of 346,000 people despite there being 118,000 more people dying than were born.
The German government also released figures showing that the number of residents with foreign backgrounds has also increased to 11.2 per cent in 2016. One of Germany’s largest cities, Frankfurt, has become the first city in the country where native Germans are a minority.
The French government refuses to release statistics on the ethnic background of individuals in France, leading many to speculate as to how many residents with foreign backgrounds are born and live in France.
While some have used confirmed cases of the sickle-cell disease, which is primarily seen in individuals with an African or Middle Eastern background, to try and determine the foreign-background population, no concrete figures have been released by the government.
The number of asylum applications for 2017 was released earlier this month with the Interior Ministry saying that the number had reached a new record over 100,000.