In 2025, 643,905 babies were born in France. A figure which illustrates an underlying trend: for fifteen years, France has had slightly fewer children each year. A decline confirmed by the updated figures published Monday July 6, 2026 by INSEE in its 2025 birth report.
643,905 births, the lowest level since 1942
The French are having fewer children. In 2025, 643,905 babies were born in France, or 2.3% less than in 2024. The decline is less marked than in previous years (-2.8% in 2024, -6.6% in 2023), but it remains greater than the average observed between 2010 and 2022.
In the mainland territory and the historic overseas departments alone, France has not experienced such a low level since 1942. And the trend is not reversing: over the first five months of 2026, births remain 1.3% lower than those of the same period in 2025.
This decline, however, does not affect France uniformly. In France, no region has really escaped it since 2014, with declines ranging from 19% in Île-de-France, up to 28% in the Grand Est, in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and in Hauts-de-France. The overseas departments paint a more contrasting picture. Reunion and Martinique saw their births stabilize, or even increase slightly (+1%). Mayotte remains the only territory where the number of births has increased significantly since 2014, with an increase of 24% (+2% compared to 2024).
From 2,000 to less than 1,800 births per day in ten years
To concretely measure the extent of the decline, INSEE also uses the number of daily births. In 2025, 1,764 babies will be born on average every day in France. Ten years earlier, in 2014, this figure still exceeded 2,000 daily births, and it approached 2,300 at the very beginning of the 2010 decade.
This method of calculation also allowed INSEE to objectify a more detailed phenomenon: the rate of births follows a fairly marked curve over the year, with a recurring peak in July and a trough in February.
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Only 11% of births to mothers under 25
Women are having children later. In 2025, births will fall by 7% among women under 25, by 3% among those aged 25 to 29 and by 2% among those aged 30 to 34. Conversely, the figures for mothers aged 35 or over are stabilizing, after having increased for a long time. Consequently, the share of births to mothers under 25 fell to 11% in 2025, compared to 14% in 2014, while that of mothers aged 35 or over increased from 23% to 30% over the same period.
Women are having their first children later and later, although one figure qualifies this explanation. Since 2014, the number of births has decreased by 21%, while the number of women aged 20 to 40 has hardly decreased over the period, it has even increased slightly in recent years. In other words, there are no fewer women of childbearing age than before: they simply have fewer.
1.61 children per woman, less than in Bulgaria
The total fertility indicator (TFR) measures the number of children a woman would have throughout her life if the fertility rates observed in a given year remained unchanged. In France, this indicator fell from 2.00 children per woman in 2014 to 1.61 in 2024, a significantly more marked decline than that of the European Union as a whole, where the TFR fell from 1.54 to 1.34 over the same period.
And for the first time since 2012, France is no longer the most fertile country in the European Union. It gives up first place to Bulgaria, whose indicator reaches 1.72 children per woman in 2024. Like Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Ireland and Denmark, it is one of the countries in northern and western Europe where fertility, already high in 2014, remains comparatively high in 2024.
The “final descendants” pass under the 2 children
Beyond variations from one year to the next, INSEE projections make it possible to anticipate what the descendants of younger generations of women will ultimately be. For all those born until 1985, completed fertility, that is to say the number of children given birth over the entire reproductive life, reaches or exceeds two children per woman, whatever their age at the time of motherhood. The shift towards later pregnancies therefore made no difference to the final result.
For subsequent generations, this is no longer certain. According to the central scenario of the 2026 population projections, the completed fertility of women born in 1990 would reach 1.93 children per woman, and that of women born in 1995 would fall to 1.74, with a possible range going from 1.63 to 1.87 depending on the assumptions made.
