France’s population growth concentrated along Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts

The Atlantic and Mediterranean arcs are the areas of France that show the greatest population growth, according to the latest snapshot of the country from statistics agency Insee.

Using its data from January 2023, the agency also identified the five regions north of the Loire, excluding Brittany and Loire-Atlantique, as areas where the population has remained the same or is shrinking.

Within the growth areas, it is the large métropoles around the major cities of Montpellier, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes and Rennes which have the biggest population growth.

Overall, the population of France, excluding Mayotte, which has separate statistics, was 68,094,000 on January 1, 2023. It grew by an average of 0.34% (or 262,000 people) per year between 2017 and 2023.

Most of the population growth was due to immigration, with more births than deaths contributing 0.15%.

For the overseas departments, Martinique and Guadeloupe both saw populations go down by 0.54% and 0.26% respectively, while French Guiana and Réunion saw populations rise by 1.51% and 0.69%.

Another section of the report looks at the 42 French towns and cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. With the exception of Paris, which lost 0.65% of its population between 2017 and 2023, they all saw population growth.

Montpellier saw the largest growth, of 1.42%, followed by Toulouse at 1.19% and Bordeaux at 0.87%.

In terms of urban–rural split, urban areas saw growth of 0.48%, compared to 0.21% in rural areas.

More deaths than births

Insee’s official figures for France’s population in 2025 confirmed the widely anticipated change of more deaths than births for the first time since World War Two.

During the year, 645,000 babies were born and 651,000 people died.

The overall population continued to grow by 0.25% to 69.1 million people due to net migration.

Some 22% of the population was aged 65 or over, which was almost the same proportion as those aged under 20.