Sébastien Oliveau – Article in *La Montagne*: «Birth rates falling, deaths rising: France faces an unprecedented demographic shift»

Intervention by Sébastien Oliveau, geographer, director of the MSH Paris-Saclay, Université Paris-Saclay; Aix-Marseille Université - MESOPOLHIS, DEMOMED (Mediterranean Demographic Observatory), in an article published on 13 January 2026 on the media outlet’s website The Mountain.

For the first time since 1944, France could record more deaths than births. Behind this symbolic threshold lies a sustained decline in the birth rate, with complex causes, the effects of which are already being felt in schools and across the country, and will soon be felt in the labour market and the pension system.