France

1. Official institutions

• INSEE (National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques): https://www.insee.fr
• INED (National Institute for Demographic Studies, Institut national d’études démographiques): https://www.ined.fr
• Ministry of the Interior — Directorate General for Foreign Nationals in France (DGEF, Direction générale des étrangers en France), asylum and residence permit statistics
• Cour des comptes (Court of Audit) — ad hoc reports on the cost of migration policies
• DREES (Ministry of Health statistics directorate) — access to social benefits

2. Key datasets

• INSEE: employment surveys, census by nationality/country of birth
• DGEF: annual report “Key figures on immigration” (les chiffres clés de l’immigration)
• INED: demographic projections

3. Demographics

3.1 Current population composition

• Important methodological note: French law prohibits the production of public statistics based on origin, ancestry, or ethnicity (see section 11). Unlike Denmark’s official breakdown by origin (Danish/immigrant/descendant), the figures above are a substitute indicator based solely on nationality and country of birth. The “descendants” share is an illustrative figure derived from the TeO2 survey (INED-INSEE, 2019-2020), combined here with INSEE’s latest population estimate (Insee Première No. 2076) from a different survey vintage — an approximation, not a single official breakdown.
• Immigrant population (born outside France, residing in France): 7.726 million people in 2024 (provisional data), or 11.3% of the total population, up from 7.293 million (10.7%) in 2023. Between 2009 and 2024, the average annual growth rate of the immigrant population was 2.4% (3.2% for foreign nationals alone), compared with near-zero growth for the total population. Source: INSEE, Insee Première No. 2076, “In 2024, 6.0 million foreign nationals live in France, 0.9 million were born there” — https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/8651304 (methodological note: a break in the series occurred in 2024 due to an improvement in census methodology, making strict comparison with earlier years imprecise).
• Annual inflow: approximately 313,000 immigrants entered France in 2024, down from 347,000 in 2023. Source: INSEE, “The essentials on… immigrants and foreign nationals” — https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/3633212

3.2 Breakdown of inflows by residence-permit category (2024)

• Important distinction: unlike Denmark’s origin-based breakdown, this French/family/work/asylum-type breakdown by stated motive is the official primary classification capturing the structure of legal immigration. 336,700 first residence permits were issued in 2024 (+1.8% versus 2023). Total stock of valid permits as of December 31, 2024: 4.3 million (+3.9%). Source: Ministry of the Interior, DGEF, “Key figures on immigration 2024” — https://www.immigration.interieur.gouv.fr/Info-ressources/Actualites/L-actu-immigration/Les-chiffres-cles-de-l-immigration-2024
• Asylum applications: 153,600 applications for international protection were filed with OFPRA (French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons) in 2024 (all procedures combined), of which 129,440 were first-time applications, up 7.7% from 2023. Protection rate (grant of refugee status or subsidiary protection): 39% in 2024 (+6 points versus 2023). Main countries of origin: Afghanistan, Ukraine, Guinea, DR Congo, Côte d’Ivoire. Average processing time: 138 days. Source: OFPRA, 2024 Activity Report — https://www.ofpra.gouv.fr/actualites/rapport-dactivite-2024

3.3 Historical waves of immigration (1945 – present)

• Important methodological limitation: because France prohibits ethnic statistics, this observatory cannot reproduce Denmark’s “immigrant population by region of origin” trend directly from a primary source. Below are historical population figures by nationality, drawn from INSEE, INED, and the Museum of Immigration History.
• Immediate post-war period (1945s–1950s): immediately after WWII, the share of foreign nationals had fallen to 5.0% by 1946. To address labor shortages, the National Immigration Office (ONI, Office national d’immigration) was created in 1945 to recruit and receive foreign workers.
• The Trente Glorieuses (1950s–1970s): Spanish and Algerian arrivals led the initial wave, followed in the 1960s by Portuguese, Moroccan, and Turkish workers. Italians remained the largest foreign-national group in the immediate postwar decades (629,000 in 1962), but Iberian arrivals grew fastest thereafter: Spaniards rose from 289,000 in 1954 to 607,000 in 1968, and Portuguese from 20,000 in 1954 to 759,000 in 1975. By 1968, immigrants represented 6.5% of the total population, three-quarters of European origin (59% of whom were Spanish or Italian) and 20% of African origin (almost entirely Maghrebi).
• Late 1970s–1980s: following the formal halt to new labor migration in 1974, family reunification became the dominant legal channel of entry; the share of Maghrebi and sub-Saharan African-origin arrivals increased.
• 1990s–2000s: diversification of countries of origin, with growing shares from sub-Saharan Africa, Turkey, and Asia.
• 2010s – present: intra-EU mobility, and asylum seekers (Afghanistan, Ukraine, Guinea, DR Congo, Côte d’Ivoire — see section 3.2) as a central component of recent inflows. Sources: INSEE, “Geographic diversity of origins of immigrants and descendants of immigrants — immigration history” — https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/6793226?sommaire=6793391; Museum of Immigration History (Palais de la Porte Dorée), “History of immigration in France after 1945” — https://www.histoire-immigration.fr/parcours-l-histoire-de-l-immigration-en-france-depuis-1945/premiere-partie-l-histoire-de-l-immigration-en-france-apres-1945

3.4 Age structure (population pyramid)

• Important methodological limitation: because France prohibits statistics by origin/ethnicity, this observatory cannot build a Denmark-style age pyramid disaggregated “by origin.” INSEE and INED publish age-structure data by nationality/country of birth (immigrant/non-immigrant/descendant), but this research could only locate descriptive analyses of age skew (in TeO2 and labor survey appendices), not a primary four-band age-by-status numeric table suitable for direct charting.

3.5 Long-term population projection (to 2070)

• Under INSEE’s central scenario, France’s total population rises only slightly from 67.4 million in 2021 to 68.1 million in 2070 (+700,000). The share aged 65+ rises from 20.7% in 2021 to 28.9% in 2070, while the 20-64 share (most of the working-age population) falls from 55.4% to 50.9% over the same period. The demographic dependency ratio (people 65+ per 100 people aged 20-64) is projected to rise from 37.4 in 2021 to 56.8 by 2070.
• Migration scenarios: for this projection, INSEE sets three assumptions for the annual net migration balance (solde migratoire) — central: +70,000/year; low: +20,000/year; high: +120,000/year. These three assumptions are described as reflecting the range within which the net migration balance has fluctuated in most years over the past 50 years.
• Important limitation (directly tied to France’s legal ban on origin statistics): Denmark’s DST projections forecast future population shares by origin (Danish/immigrant/descendant), but INSEE’s official projection publishes no breakdown of future population by country of birth, nationality, or origin. The scenarios vary only the aggregate volume of net migration; a projection of “what share of the population will be of immigrant background in the future” does not exist as an official statistic, due to France’s legal framework. Source: INSEE, “Projections de population à l’horizon 2070” (Insee Première No. 1881) — https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/5893969; and “Projections de population 2021-2070 pour la France — Méthode et hypothèses” — https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/fichier/5893639/Methode_et_hypotheses.pdf

4. Public finances — net cost

• No official, regular calculation equivalent to the Danish model (an annual Ministry of Finance breakdown by origin and length of residence) exists in France — a structural limitation to be flagged explicitly.
• The Cour des comptes (Court of Audit) publishes ad hoc reports on the cost of migration policy from time to time, but not a systematic annual calculation comparable to the Danish Ministry of Finance.
• Private and think-tank estimates exist, but no single comparable methodology has been established across them (e.g., Fondation iFRAP — a think tank known for a more restrictive stance on immigration and fiscal policy; academic work by Lionel Ragot and Xavier Chojnicki — a more neutral academic approach). The differing sponsors and stances of these studies must be flagged explicitly.

4.1 Pension system / contributor-to-pensioner ratio

• Important limitation: this dependency indicator covers the national population and is not broken down by origin (immigrant/non-immigrant). There is no French equivalent to the Danish Ministry of Finance’s origin-disaggregated dependency/net-contribution analysis, due to the legal prohibition on origin statistics (see section 11).
• Supplementary projection reflecting the 2023 pension reform: a supplementary labor-force projection that takes the 2023 pension reform into account estimates the ratio of working-age population to the population aged 60+ not in the labor force (actifs/inactifs ratio) at 1.6 by 2070 (down from 1.9 in 2015). Source: INSEE, “Updated labor force projections reflecting the 2023 pension reform” — https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/7456937?sommaire=7456956

5. Labor market

• Unemployment rate (ILO definition, ages 15-64) in 2023: 11.2% for immigrants, 10.2% for descendants of immigrants, 6.4% for the population with no direct migratory ancestry. In 2024, the immigrant unemployment rate stood at 12%, versus 7% for non-immigrants (overall labor force average unemployment rate: 7.4% in 2024). The gap between immigrants and non-immigrants has been relatively stable in recent years. Source: INSEE, “Inactivity, unemployment and employment of immigrants and descendants of immigrants by geographic origin” — https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/4195420; and DGEF, “Activity, employment and unemployment of immigrants from 2014 to 2024” — https://www.immigration.interieur.gouv.fr/documentation/etudes-et-statistiques/activite-emploi-et-chomage-des-immigres-de-2014-a-2024.html
• Labor force participation rate (2024): immigrant men 80% versus non-immigrant men 77% (small gap); immigrant women 63% versus non-immigrant women 73% (10-point gap, more pronounced). Source: INSEE, “The essentials on… immigrants and foreign nationals” — https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/3633212
• Breakdown by status: employment/unemployment statistics from the INSEE labor force survey do not distinguish the reason for entry into the country (work/family/asylum); cross-referencing with residence permit reasons (section 3.2) remains indicative and not a single official cross-tabulation. Unemployment rates cross-tabulated by migration reason are not publicly available.

6. Security / justice

• Criminal statistics by nationality are published (SSMSI, Ministry of the Interior) but not by origin/ancestry — a methodological limitation to be explicitly explained.
• Legal note: France prohibits by law (CNIL, the Data Protection Act) the compilation of public statistics based on ethnic or racial origin; the security statistics published by SSMSI relate solely to the declared nationality (French/foreign) of suspects, never to the migratory ancestry of people of French nationality.
• 2024 data (SSMSI annual report): among suspects, people of foreign nationality represented 18% for homicides, 20% for intentional assault and battery against persons aged 15 or over, 13% for sexual violence, 22% for armed robbery, 30% for violent theft without a weapon, and 38% for residential burglaries — to be compared against a share of foreign nationals in the resident population of about 8-9% in 2024 (see section 3). Source: Ministry of the Interior, SSMSI, “Crime and insecurity in 2024: statistical review and departmental atlas” — https://www.interieur.gouv.fr/Interstats/Actualites/Insecurite-et-delinquance-en-2024-bilan-statistique-et-atlas-departemental
• Explicit limitation noted by SSMSI itself: these statistics cannot identify suspects holding dual nationality, nor measure the criminal activity of people born foreign but now naturalized French (counted as French), which tends to underestimate the real share of people of recent immigrant background in these statistics compared with a measure based on country of birth.

7. Education

• Preliminary methodological note: in line with the French prohibition on ethnic-origin statistics (see section 11), neither DEPP (the Ministry of Education’s statistics and evaluation directorate) nor the OECD measure students’ “origin” in France; the only available distinction is the migration status declared by the student in the PISA survey (student born in France to parents born in France / second-generation immigrant student born in France to parents born abroad / first-generation immigrant student born abroad), which is close to the parents’ country of birth used in the TeO2 survey (see section 3).
• Math performance gap, PISA 2022 survey (OECD): a 51-point raw gap between students with an immigrant background (first and second generation combined) and non-immigrant students in France (for comparison, the OECD average gap is 29 points). This gap narrows to 17 points once the families’ socioeconomic profile is taken into account (versus 5 points on OECD average), indicating that a large part of the raw gap reflects differences in social background rather than an effect of migration status as such. 48% of students with an immigrant background are socioeconomically disadvantaged, versus 25% of all students; 48% of immigrant students report speaking a language different from the test language at home, versus 5% of other students. Source: OECD, PISA 2022 Results (Volume I) — Immigrant background and student performance — https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/pisa-2022-results-volume-i_53f23881-en/full-report/immigrant-background-and-student-performance_f469d45e.html
• DEPP student panels (cohort tracking of students schooled in France, e.g., the 2007 panel entering middle school): these longitudinal surveys by the Ministry of Education confirm that the academic success of children of immigrants in middle school is statistically more strongly correlated with the family’s cultural and social capital than with the migration fact itself, with differentiated trajectories by sex (a girls’ academic advantage observed independently of migratory origin) and by the parents’ geographic region of origin. Source: Ministry of Education, DEPP, “DEPP student panels: an essential source for understanding and evaluating the education system” — https://www.education.gouv.fr/depp/les-panels-d-eleves-de-la-depp-source-essentielle-pour-connaitre-et-evaluer-le-systeme-educatif-4871
• Note: an official, standalone DEPP indicator (outside PISA/OECD) quantifying a gap in graduation rates or academic level strictly comparing “immigrant students/children of immigrants” versus “students with no migratory ancestry whatsoever” using French data alone is not publicly available as a directly accessible primary source; the OECD data above, based on the same students tested in France, is used as the primary reference.

8. Housing

• Housing tenure status (2019-2020): 32% of immigrants own their home, compared with 59% of non-immigrants and 46% of descendants of immigrants (people born in France to immigrant parents). Conversely, 35% of immigrants are tenants in social housing (HLM), compared with 11% of non-immigrants; in the private rental sector, the shares are close (28% of immigrants versus 27% of non-immigrants). Strong heterogeneity by country of birth: the homeownership rate ranges from 13% for immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa to 61% for those from Southeast Asia. Source: INED-INSEE, Trajectories and Origins survey 2 (TeO2, 2019-2020), “Housing conditions — Immigrants and descendants of immigrants” — https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/6793286?sommaire=6793391
• Housing overcrowding: 26% of immigrants live in overcrowded housing (based on the number of rooms relative to household size), compared with 8% of non-immigrants and 17% of descendants of immigrants. Source: INED-INSEE, TeO2 survey (2019-2020) — https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/6793286?sommaire=6793391
• Geographic concentration in priority urban policy areas (QPV): as of January 1, 2024, the 1,362 QPVs in metropolitan France contain 5.3 million inhabitants, about 8% of the population. Immigrants represent 28% of the resident population in these areas and foreign nationals 23%, shares respectively 2.5 and 2.8 times higher than their weight in urban areas overall; concentration exceeds 30% for immigrants from the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa. The unemployment rate in QPVs (18.3%) is about twice that of the surrounding metropolitan areas (7.5%). Source: ONPV (National Observatory for Urban Policy), data and annual report — https://www.onpv.fr/donnees; and INED-INSEE, TeO2 survey (2019-2020) for the share of immigrants in QPVs — https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/6793286?sommaire=6793391
• Methodological limitation: these statistics relate to migration status (immigrant/non-immigrant/descendant of immigrant) and country of birth, never to ethnic origin in the sense defined by French law (see section 11); they therefore cannot measure any segregation by origin beyond declared nationality or country of birth.

9. Social cohesion

• Longitudinal Tolerance Index (ILT), CNCDH: the ILT has measured, since 1990, the level of adherence of the French population to racist, antisemitic, and xenophobic prejudices (0 = maximum intolerance, 100 = maximum tolerance). In 2024, the ILT stood at 63/100, up 1 point from 2023 (which itself had recorded a 3-point drop from 2022) — the third-best score since the series began in 1990. This overall improvement masks strong generational polarization: the youngest cohorts show rising tolerance, while the oldest cohorts are regressing. Persistence of specific prejudices in 2024: 45% of respondents believe Islam threatens France’s identity, and nearly 60% believe most immigrants come to France to benefit from social protection. Source: CNCDH (National Advisory Commission on Human Rights), 35th annual report on combating racism, antisemitism, and xenophobia, published June 18, 2025 (covering 2024) — https://www.cncdh.fr/publications/rapport-2024-sur-la-lutte-contre-le-racisme-lantisemitisme-et-la-xenophobie
• Trajectories and Origins survey 2 (TeO2, INED-INSEE, 2019-2020), already cited in section 3: this survey, which notably asks about perceived discrimination based on country of birth or that of one’s parents (rather than ethnic origin, which is legally prohibited), is the leading academic source in France on social cohesion issues related to immigration; its detailed findings on perceived discrimination are used in thematic INED and INSEE publications (housing, employment — see sections 5 and 8) rather than in a single “social cohesion” summary comparable to the CNCDH barometer. Source: INED, presentation of the TeO2 survey — https://teo.site.ined.fr
• Methodological limitation: neither the CNCDH barometer nor the TeO2 survey produce statistics on ethnic or racial origin (legal prohibition, see section 11); the CNCDH barometer measures declared opinions in the general population, not an objective state of inter-community relations, and the TeO2 survey distinguishes only migration status (immigrant/descendant of immigrant/no direct migratory ancestry) and country of birth.

10. Recent political context

• Law No. 2024-42 of January 26, 2024, “to control immigration and improve integration”: promulgated after a contested parliamentary process (use of a joint committee followed by adoption via a joint National Assembly/Senate vote), the law is structured in four titles. Title I: tightening conditions for entry and residence and combating irregular immigration (regularization conditions, asylum law, action against smuggling networks). Title II: stronger conditioning of foreign nationals’ integration on French-language proficiency and employment (including the creation of a “labor-shortage occupations” residence permit). Title III: extension of grounds for removing foreign nationals deemed a serious threat to public order, including some who arrived as minors or have long resided in France. Title IV: various provisions on the enforcement of removal decisions. The Constitutional Council, in decision No. 2023-863 DC of January 25, 2024, struck down about thirty articles (including Articles 3 to 19, 24 to 26, 32, 33, 45, 47, 48, 50, 58, and 65), largely on the grounds of a violation of Article 45 of the Constitution (provisions introduced by parliamentary amendment deemed insufficiently related to the original text, known as “legislative riders”), including measures relating to family reunification conditions and prior residence duration requirements for certain social benefits; Article 1, on annual immigration quotas voted by Parliament, was also partially struck down. Source: Légifrance, full text of the law — https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000049040245; and Constitutional Council, decision No. 2023-863 DC of January 25, 2024 — https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/decision/2024/2023863DC.htm
• Debate over State Medical Aid (AME): a scheme separate from the January 2024 law, AME covers the healthcare costs of foreign nationals in irregular situations who have resided in France for more than three months, subject to a means test. Its budgetary cost was set at about €1.2 billion in 2024, rising to €1.3 billion in the 2025 budget bill (+8%), before a Senate amendment cut this amount by €200 million during budget review. In January 2024, then-Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced a regulatory reform of AME (a partial conversion into a more narrowly defined “emergency medical aid”), based on a report submitted by two members of parliament; this plan has not been implemented to date due to the dissolution of the National Assembly in June 2024 and the changes of government that followed. The debate remains structured around three recurring themes: the scheme’s budgetary cost, the public-health argument (risk of delayed care and higher hospital costs if abolished), and the “pull factor” argument invoked by its critics. Source: Senate, information report No. 24-841, “State medical aid: a necessary reform” — https://www.senat.fr/rap/r24-841/r24-8410.html
• Limitation to flag: as of this writing (June 2026), no regulatory reform of AME announced in January 2024 has been formally published in the Official Journal; the prior legal status quo (Article L251-1 of the Social Action and Family Code) therefore remains in force, with only the annual funding level voted in the budget act having varied.

11. Data limitations and biases

Related FAQ

• Immigrants and unemployment: official statistics across 20 countries
• Do immigrant students underperform? PISA 2022 data by country