Yesterday's joke in La Tribune du Dimanche hit the nail on the head in summarizing the spirit of the times. Emmanuel Macron, followed by a senior officer in uniform, was seen inspecting in the courtyard of the Elysée. But it was not a line of soldiers that honored the President of the Republic, but rather mothers with baby strollers, lined up in front of the red carpet.
In recent days, Macron has spoken a lot about the need for rearmament, in its strict military sense, and also civic, economic and demographic rearmament. The French head of state has insisted on continuing to greatly increase the defense effort and on adopting, at an industrial level, a “war economy” philosophy to confront new geopolitical threats and to give Ukraine what it needs to defend itself from Russian aggression.
In his long press conference last Tuesday, which was conceived as a “meeting with the nation,” the French president surprised the country with his energetic plea in favor of birth. He spoke of the urgency of “demographic rearmament.” The data for 2023 had just been made public, very disturbing. Never since the end of the Second World War have so few babies been born in France: only 678,000, 6.6% less than in 2022. Since 2011, births have not stopped falling, except in 2021 because there was a post-covid rebound. The fertility rate is 1.68 children per woman.
The latest figures have come as a real shock because they confirm the end of a French exception. “We were the strength, without a doubt the uniqueness of Europe when it was compared with its neighbors,” Macron himself admitted.
What are the reasons for the sudden change in trend and French demographic decline? Experts agree that the year 2023 was especially discouraging for fathering children. First of all because of inflation, at the highest level in many years, but also because of the anguish created by the conflict in Ukraine, a major war in Europe. Added to this are other structural factors such as the cost of housing and the difficulty in finding it, or the growing concern of new generations regarding climate change and environmental problems. Couples of childbearing age decide late and meditate a lot before taking the step. The generous French welfare state no longer has as positive an influence as it once did. There are many factors to weigh.
The philosopher and hospital director Frédéric Spinhirny, author of Vous voulez sauver la planète? Faites des gosses! (Do you want to save the planet? Make children) assured Le Journal du Dimanche that we are facing almost “an anthropological revolution” in which having children has become an option like any other and not something natural or even essential, as was the case. in previous societies.
The drop in the birth rate will revive and may further aggravate the already very tense debate on immigration. It is evident that the constant flow of foreigners cushions France's demographic weakness. The statistics hide very interesting politically and sociologically interesting data. The fertility of continental France, the Hexagon, would be even lower if the figures from overseas departments with high birth rates such as Mayotte – an archipelago in the Indian Ocean – or French Guiana, in South America, were not included in the country's total count. The demographic strength of immigration must also be taken into account. Babies born to parents not born in the European Union have increased by 72% since 2000.
Against this backdrop, Macron proposed eliminating paternity leave and replacing it with a “birth leave,” lasting six months and better paid. The French president announced “a great national plan” against the “plague” of infertility, which he considered “the taboo of the century” and which he attributed, in part, to the “change in customs” and the tendency to increasingly delay the first pregnancy. At the Elysée they are apparently thinking about establishing a free gynecological examination for women at the age of 25 and a sperm analysis for men, with the aim of correcting any problems in time.
The proposals made by Macron – who has not had children of his own, although his wife, Brigitte, did have them in her first marriage and is also a grandmother – provoked jokes and some criticism, especially from feminist leaders who blamed the president for a serious and honest reflection aimed at women. The brave environmentalist deputy Sandrine Rousseau stated it unequivocally: “Our wombs are not a matter of state.”
