Conservative French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour has proposed giving a €10,000 “birth grant” for children born in rural French areas in an effort to increase French birth rates.
The conservative writer and television pundit announced that he would be looking to give parents living in rural areas €10,000 (£8,326/$11,255) for every new child saying that the cash could be used to “cover the costs of a nanny, transport costs, the development of housing or extracurricular activities.”
The Frenchman urged prospective voters to compare his proposed grants to spending on supposed child migrants arriving in the country clandestinely, which he said was “€50,000 [£41,600/$56,400] spent each year per unaccompanied illegal minor!”
Zemmour’s birth grant would be available to those living in rural areas defined by the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE), which could cover as much as a third of the French population, according to a report from the newspaper Le Parisien.
“For the rural world to be reborn, births must first be back. With my measure in favour of the birth rate, there will be more children in your communes, so we will no longer close classes! Our campaigns will come back to life!” Zemmour said to a gathering of around a thousand in the village of Chaumont-sur-Tharonne.
Zemmour called the policy a “reconquest” for the French countryside, which is also the name of his political party that was revealed at his first major campaign rally in December in the suburbs of Paris.
Zemmours new pro-family policy echoes that of the Hungarian government under Prime Minister Viktor Orban, which, in 2019, introduced a 10 million forints (€30,590 or £27,000) grant for married couples who have children, which takes the form of a loan but is forgiven after the couple has a third child.
Hungary has also introduced various tax breaks for families as part of Prime Minister Orban’s goal to increase the country birthrate.
“We are living in times when fewer and fewer children are being born throughout Europe. People in the West are responding to this with immigration,” Orban said in 2019 and added, “Hungarians see this in a different light. We do not need numbers, but Hungarian children.”
France, while boasting one of the highest birth rates in Europe, has seen several years of declines in births, with INSEE statistics released last year revealing that 2020 saw one of the country’s lowest birth rates since the end of the Second World War.
Birthrates are expected to be a major issue among the candidates for the French presidency this year, with allies of current President Emmanuel Macron stating that they are working on pro-family proposals and said they wish to see Macron take a pro-family stance.