Percentage of Immigrants in France Expected to Keep Rising — As Birthrate Keeps Falling

In its latest population projections through 2070, the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee) forecasts net migration (the difference between immigrant arrivals and departures) of +150,000 people per year, corresponding to the average of the past decade. In other words, each year more foreigners would remain in France than leave it, and in significant numbers.

The demographers who authored the study are quick to point out: “Given the considerable uncertainty in this area, the low and high scenarios are set at plus or minus 80,000 people relative to the central scenario.”

But the Excel tables published alongside the report by Insee reveal some noteworthy trends. Net migration stood at “+65,000” immigrants per year from 1970 to 1995, then “+99,000” from 1995 to 2026. Next come the projections: “+150,000” from 2026 to 2037, and the same annual figure from 2037 to 2070. Insee is therefore assuming what it considers a reasonable average increase of 50% in net migration compared with the level observed in France over the past 30 years.

This may seem considerable, but even under these assumptions, including higher birth rates among immigrant populations, nothing would halt the decline of France’s population. Even under the high net migration scenario—230,000 additional foreigners remaining each year—the demographic trend would not be reversed by 2070. It would, however, be softened.

“The fertility rate of immigrant populations is slightly higher than that of other people living in the country. That said, we estimate the effect of this fertility at 0.1 points in the average total fertility rate for the population as a whole.”

Moreover, according to research conducted by the National Institute for Demographic Studies (Ined) in partnership with Insee as part of the Trajectories and Origins survey on “the evolution of fertility behaviors,” we see that second-generation individuals—children of immigrants—have “fertility behaviors that are very close to, and almost identical to, those of the rest of the population.”

Nevertheless, an average of 150,000 additional people per year over the 44 years separating us from 2070 corresponds to a projection of more than 6.5 million additional residents arriving from abroad and remaining in France.

And depending on whether one adopts Insee’s own high scenario of 230,000 people per year or its low scenario of 70,000 people per year, the total number of additional foreigners would range from 3 million to 10 million people over a little more than four decades.

In 2025, nearly 8 million immigrants were living in France, representing 11.6% of the total population. Of these, more than 2.6 million, or 33%, had acquired French nationality.

The foreign population living in France totals nearly 6.3 million people, or 9.1% of the total population. It consists of 5.3 million immigrants who have not acquired French nationality and 1 million people born in France who hold foreign nationality.

In addition, 1.7 million people were born abroad with French nationality. Combined with the immigrant population (7.97 million), a total of 9.6 million people living in France were born abroad, representing 14.0% of the population.

“In 2025, nearly half of immigrants living in France were born in Africa (49.2%), and nearly one-third in Europe (30.3%),” Insee notes. This represents more than 3.5 million African immigrants. By comparison, in 1968, three out of four foreigners were European.

The most common countries of birth among immigrants today are Algeria (12.6%), Morocco (11.7%), Portugal (7.2%), Tunisia (4.9%), Italy (3.5%), Turkey (3.5%), and Spain (3.0%).

And tomorrow? According to projections by the United Nations Population Division, Africa’s population, currently around 1.4 billion, could approach 2.9 billion by 2075. Insee’s figures on the share of immigrants from Africa in France already reflect this global demographic shift.

Insee is careful not to state what the immigrant share of France’s population will be in 2070.

“In this projection exercise, there is no modeling of that figure,” Lou Wolff acknowledges. “However, quite naturally, since natural population growth is negative and will become increasingly negative in the future, and since net migration is positive—at least that is the assumption we make for the future—there will be an increase that remains positive in the share of immigrants.”

According to him, this is logical, “because people will continue to arrive in the country and we will no longer have, as was previously the case, population growth generated by births resulting in a positive net balance.”

He continues: “We can be certain that this immigrant share will, structurally, continue to increase.”

“These projections are not forecasts,” the Insee official insists. They are intended to establish the direction of travel if all parameters continue along the trends observed today. And of course, those parameters may change.

One might nevertheless have hoped that the institute tasked with informing public debate through reliable statistics would be somewhat more explicit in its “exercise.” Especially with a major election in France only a year away, where immigration will inevitably be the subject of intense debate. But perhaps that explains it.