Tumors and cardiovascular diseases remained the leading causes of death in France in 2024, accounting for almost half alone, an annual report published by several research organizations showed on Tuesday June 23.
Every year, scientists – linked to the Public Health France agency, Inserm and Drees, the statistics department of the Ministry of Health – take stock of the main causes of mortality, with a slight delay. This is 2024, when more than 641,000 deaths have been recorded.
Compared to the general population, the mortality rate of French people has fallen to a historically low level – 777.9 per 100,000 inhabitants –, according to this reference study. But, she warns, this mortality “remains significantly higher than that which would have led to the extension of the 2015-2019 or 2012-2019 trends”, before the Covid pandemic which caused a clear rebound in the early 2020s.
In detail, tumors, which essentially correspond to mortality linked to cancers, constituted 27.1% of deaths in 2024 and circulatory diseases – mainly referring to cardiovascular pathologies – caused 21.2%.
Respiratory diseases on the rise
These two figures are declining, but with varying realities. Thus “mortality by tumor continues to decline, with the exception of that of the pancreas which is trending upward, and those of the lung, bronchi and trachea in women,” note the three institutions. And deaths linked to tumors “concern people on average younger than those from all causes,” they emphasize.
Furthermore, a third major cause of death, respiratory diseases, continues to increase, a trend already seen in previous years. They caused 8.2% of deaths, a figure which does not include Covid, whose deaths continue to decline.
“This increase is explained in particular by a 2024-2025 influenza epidemic characterized by an early start, with a peak reached in mid-January 2025,” details the study.
The researchers have also drawn up an initial assessment for 2025, even if it still remains subject to methodological uncertainties. Trends appear similar to 2024, with a “slight decline” in mortality rates from tumors and cardio-neurovascular diseases.
