France Population

France has long had one of the highest fertility rates in the European Union, the product of generous family policy and a strong cultural emphasis on supporting parents, though even here births have slipped below the replacement level. That relative fecundity has kept France ageing more slowly than neighbours like Germany or Italy. Immigration adds further to a population that continues to grow gently rather than shrink.

With roughly 66.7 million people as of 2026, France ranks 23rd in the world by population. A country of Western Europe, its trajectory to 2100 is governed by how births, deaths and migration play out. It packs in roughly 121 people per square kilometre.

Growth continues for France until around 2096, the year its population is set to crest at about 68.5 million. From there a slow fall takes it to roughly 68.5 million by century's end. It passed the 50 million mark around 1969.

With fertility near 1.64, just under the 2.1 replacement mark, natural increase is fading. Net inward migration adds to the population each year and partly offsets the low birth rate.

The median age is set to climb from about 42 today to roughly 47 by 2100, even as life expectancy improves from about 83 years. A rising median age means fewer working-age people supporting each retiree over time.

These figures follow the UN's medium variant, the most widely cited scenario. The low and high variants, driven mainly by differing fertility assumptions, fan out into a wide range by 2100, so treat each number as a central estimate rather than a precise forecast.