PARIS (dpa-AFX) – Life expectancy in France rose last year to 85.7 years for women and 80 years for men. The statistics authority Insee announced this on Tuesday in Paris. Life expectancy in France was recently above the EU average and also above expectations in Germany. 21.5 percent of the French population is now 65 years of age and older, which puts France at around the EU average.
Meanwhile, the decline in birth rates that has been ongoing for years continues. In 2023, 678,000 babies were born in France, 6.6 percent or 48,000 births fewer than the year before. Compared to 2010, the number of births fell by 20 percent. On average, women have later and fewer children; in 2023 there were 1.68 children per woman. The number of residents in France, which has the second largest population in the EU after Germany, grew by 0.3 percent to 68.4 million in 2023.
The number of weddings in 2023 was 235,000, at a similarly high level as in the previous year, when the highest number of weddings was registered since 2012. The statisticians explained the increased number of marriages partly as a catch-up effect after the corona pandemic, during which people postponed a wedding because of the restrictions./evs/DP/jha