According to specialists, the main drivers of birth rates are not financial aid, but rather other factors. These statements also echo General de Gaulle’s natalist discourse in 1945, calling for “12 million beautiful babies for France in ten years.” “It is important to remember that at that time there was a political consensus that low birth rates were one of the reasons for France’s defeat. Natalist objectives are often attributed to the right, but the left, particularly the communists, largely shared them,” notes geographer Laurent Chalard, an expert in territorial dynamics.
“The debate on demographic evolution has been a French passion since…”