Insee Focus · December 2024 · n° 346

Legal populations of municipalities on 1 January 2022 Falling natural increase has led to slower population growth in France

On 1 January 2022, 67,761,000 people lived in one of the 34,918 French municipalities, excluding Mayotte, that existed on 1 January 2024. This represented an average growth of +0.35% per year since 2016, compared to +0.44% between 2011 and 2016. This slowdown was due to a weaker contribution from the natural increase, which fell from +0.37% to +0.18% per year. The main areas of demographic growth were the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, and the regional metropolises of Montpellier, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nantes. Trends in the French overseas departments were mixed.