France, a nation so famous for its lovers that it has a kiss named after it, needs help having babies.
This is according to President Emmanuel Macron, who has announced a broad series of measures to address what he called a “scourge” of infertility in his country.
These include offering a free “fertility check” to all young people aged 18 to 25, both men and women.
In an interview with the magazine sheShe also mentioned a “campaign” to help women preserve their fertility if they want to have children in the future, such as egg freezing, as well as a national research project on infertility.
Macron’s campaign, which he hinted at in January when he called for “demographic rearmament,” comes despite France having one of the highest birth rates in Western Europe.
French President Emmanuel Macron has announced a sweeping series of measures to address what he called a “scourge” of infertility in his country.
France’s fertility rate, a national measure of the average number of live births per woman, stands at 1.8, significantly above that of the United Kingdom, which stands at 1.5, according to the latest data backed by the UN.
Both figures are below what scientists call the “fertility replacement level” of 2.1: the amount needed for a population to replace one generation with the next.
Macron has not set a specific target for his plan to increase France’s birth rates, instead stating that he wanted the nation to have a “dynamic birth rate.”
He also told Elle that if the French could have as many children as they wanted, the country’s birth rate would be 2.3, but he did not claim that was the goal of his campaign.
France’s fertility rate of 1.8 is the lowest the country has recorded since shortly after the end of World War II.
In 1950 the figure was an average of three live births per woman.
Experts, and even celebrities like Elon Musk, have been warning about the global threat of depopulation for years.
Earlier this year, scientists warned that 75 percent of countries would face this demographic problem by 2050.
They warned that the problem is particularly serious in developed Western nations and countries like the UK could become reliant on immigration to keep their societies and economies running.
Three in four countries face the threat of “underpopulation” by 2050 due to plummeting birth rates around the world, shock research warned today.
By 2100, this figure could rise to 97 percent of all nations, in what experts have described as a “staggering social change.”
Powers such as Great Britain and the United States will have to rely on immigration to avoid the “immense” consequences that the situation threatens, concluded the study published in the respected medical journal The Lancet.
Elon Musk (pictured), who boasts of ‘always beating the drum’, has been warning about a decline in births for years
Without replenishing an aging population, scientists say public services and economic growth are at risk.
Steadily declining birth rates will also put additional pressure on the NHS and social care.
The reasons why people, on average, have fewer children in countries like France and the United Kingdom are complex.
For example, some women simply enjoy the independence that modern society provides compared to a century ago and choose not to have children.
Others only choose to have children later in life and instead focus on their careers during their younger years.
Since fertility is linked to age, this can lead to some women never having children or having fewer than they planned, even with technologies such as in vitro fertilization.
For men, lifestyle factors, such as the increasing prevalence of obesity in many countries, are also thought to be having a negative impact on fertility.
Increasing pressures on the cost of living, especially the price of childcare and housing, is another factor holding back couples from having children or deciding to have several.