A major demographic study conducted by France’s leading public research institute has found that roughly one-third of the country’s population is either foreign-born or the child or grandchild of immigrants, offering a detailed portrait of modern France’s changing population.
The findings come from the National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED), a respected Paris-based research organization, which interviewed approximately 27,000 people across mainland France between 2019 and 2020.
The report arrives amid an increasingly heated national debate over immigration, integration, national identity, and the future demographic direction of the country.
According to the study, 13 percent of France’s population was born abroad, while 11 percent are children of immigrants and another 10 percent are grandchildren of immigrants.
The authors described modern France as “a society profoundly marked by long-term immigration,” noting that the country’s demographic composition has become increasingly complex over successive generations.
When broader family ties are taken into account—including marriages involving immigrants or their descendants—the study found that approximately 41 percent of the population has some connection to immigration.
The French government generally prohibits the collection of racial and ethnic data through official census mechanisms. As a result, studies such as INED’s are among the few that come close to measuring the long-term demographic effects of immigration.
The report also highlighted the origins of France’s immigrant population. Among immigrants between the ages of 18 and 59, the largest group—32 percent—came from the Maghreb region of North Africa, including countries such as Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. Another 20 percent originated from sub-Saharan Africa, while 16 percent came from Asia. Just 28 percent came from other European countries.
Researchers additionally found that a significant minority of immigrants experienced periods of illegal status after arriving in France. Among those who migrated after the age of 16, roughly one in five reported having entered illegally or lacking legal residency documentation at some point.
Beyond demographic trends, the study examined questions of identity and assimilation.
According to the report, descendants of European immigrants were generally more likely to follow what researchers described as a traditional assimilation pattern, gradually identifying less with their ancestral origins over time.
By contrast, descendants of non-European immigrants were more likely to retain stronger ethnic, cultural, or religious identities and to describe themselves through what researchers called “hyphenated” identities that combined French nationality with ancestral heritage.
“The analysis calls into question a simplistic assimilationist vision,” the authors wrote, arguing that connections to ancestral origins often persist across multiple generations rather than fading entirely.
Instead, researchers described a process of cultural blending alongside the emergence of what they termed “ethnicized and racialized identities” among some segments of the population.
The findings are likely to fuel an already contentious political debate in France.
Supporters of stricter immigration controls have pointed to concerns about social cohesion, integration, and the emergence of parallel identities within French society. They argue that large-scale immigration has transformed the country more rapidly than public institutions have been able to accommodate.
Others, particularly on the political left, view demographic change as a natural and positive development in an increasingly globalized society.
Among the most prominent advocates of that view is left-wing political leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who has promoted the idea of a multicultural “New France” shaped by successive waves of immigration. Mélenchon has argued that demographic and cultural evolution is an inevitable feature of modern societies and has embraced concepts that many of his political opponents regard as controversial.
The INED study does not take a position on the political implications of immigration. However, its findings provide one of the clearest statistical snapshots to date of how deeply immigration and its descendants have impacted contemporary French society.
READ NEXT: French Left-Wing Leader Claims France Was Never A White Or Christian Nation
