Crisis in France as letters sent to all 29-year-olds about having more babies | World | News

As birth rates crash to their lowest level in France since World War One, a plan to combat the lack of babies, first promised by Emmanuel Macron over two years ago but has seen little progress since, has finally been launched. Presented by the government on Thursday (February 5), it aims to raise awareness of the severe demographic issue affecting more than three million people.

“The challenges of infertility has been analysed in all their aspects” to allow the “immediate launch of concrete and long-awaited measures,” health minister Stéphanie Rist said on Thursday during the presentation of the plan. A key measure will be to send a message to all citizens on their 29th birthday, offering them advice, starting at the end of the summer. However, the plan, whose total budget has not yet been revealed, also aims to increase the availability of egg freezing, permitted by the 2021 bioethics law but, in practice, is plagued by long waiting times.

The official letter to be sent to all 29-year-olds will include information on fertility, reproduction, the biological clock and preservation options. According to Europe Reloaded, it would begin with the words: “It’s time to think about whether or not to have a child”.

While the age of 29 may seem an odd choice, this is the age at which preservation of gametes is authorised in France without medical conditions.

This comes as France’s fertility rate has dropped to around 1.56 children per woman – far below the 2.1 replacement level and the lowest in decades. Births have fallen consistently since 2010, when the rate was 2.03, to only 663,000 in 2024, while deaths surpassed births for the first time since World War Two.

Key causes include high living costs, economic uncertainty, and delayed childbearing. Indeed, 28% of people cite the high cost of raising children as a major obstacle. Concerns about the future, including climate change and economic instability, are decreasing the desire for children, The Guardian reported last month. The end of universal child benefits, which had previously been granted regardless of income, was decided in 2014 under the socialist presidency of François Hollande, and has also, according to demographic observers, had a profound effect on the nation’s birthrate.

However, when announcing the official letter plan, Ms Rist promised that this would be done without any pressure: “The role of politicians is not to dictate whether or not to have children; what we must avoid is continuing to hear ‘if only I had known’.”

This clarification comes after Mr Macron was criticised two years ago by several feminist organisations for linking infertility to a problem of “demographic rearmament” – a term that no MP from his coalition uses today. Anger also arose because the French president himself has no children. He is a stepfather to his wife Brigitte’s three children and a step-grandfather to her grandchildren.

While the crisis is particularly acute in France, the entire European continent is facing a severe demographic crisis, with its lowest fertility rate in decades. The EU’s average rate dropped to 1.38 births per woman in 2023, also far below the 2.1 needed to sustain the population. This trend threatens to shrink the population by approximately 5% (22 million people) by 2050.