Why is most of France empty? (2024)

Why is most of France empty?

The low population density (less than 30/km², or 78/mi²) is caused largely by the rural exodus and urbanisation of the 19th and 20th centuries. Some commentators prefer to speak of a "low-density diagonal" (diagonale des faibles densités) and regard the term "empty diagonal" as both pejorative and exaggerated.

The so-called "Empty Diagonal" of France, a sudden area of very low density that bisects the French heartland. Reasons include distance from ports, lack of industrial resources, and French population stagnation in the 19th century (a demographic curiosity still the subject of much academic study).

Its decline coincided with a collapse in its birth rate – now we know why. In the eighteenth century, France was the China of Europe. But after a thousand years of dominance based on particularly fertile land, she declined over the next 250 years to be just another European power.

The population of Paris dropped from 2,850,000 in 1954 to 2,152,000 in 1990, as middle-class families moved to the suburbs. A suburban railway network, the RER (Réseau Express Régional), was built to complement the Métro; the Périphérique expressway encircling the city, was completed in 1973.

The curious explanation behind why 31.7% of metropolitan France is uninhabited.

French involvement in the Seven Years' War and the American War of Independence added substantially to the state's debts. Jacques Necker, finance minister from 1777 and 1781, had largely funded France's war effort through loans. As a result the state debt ballooned to between 8 and 12 billion livres by 1789.

France is aging, and aging fast. This is hardly surprising. After the Second World War, the country experienced the strongest demographic surge in Europe. From 1946 to 1950, more than 850,000 children were born each year in France, with the record being reached in 1949 with nearly 900,000 births.

Third Group—Peasants: largest group within the Third Estate. This group was 80 percent of France's population. This group paid half of their income to the nobles, tithes to the Church, and taxes to the king's agents.

The population of France is growing by 1,000,000 people every three years- an average annual increase of 340,000 people, or +0.6%.

Even though the overall poverty rate in the city of Paris is 14 percent, which is close to the national average, when you look at the underprivileged neighborhoods, the rate jumps to nearly 40 percent.

What is the average income in Paris?

Average Salary in Paris 2023

According to the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE), the average salary in Paris is €54,100, which is €4,300 more than the national average. It's important to remember that the cost of living in Paris is higher than the rest of the country.

The population of Paris is around 2.2 million people, while the London population is around 8.7 million people spread over a much larger land space than Paris.

According to figures from the Ministry of Housing, of the just over 200,000 homeless people housed each night in the country, 100,000 are in the Ile-de-France. Simply put, there are not enough emergency shelter spots in Paris to accommodate everyone.

During the French revolution, the French society was divided into three estates. The peasants belong to the third estate and have to pay all the taxes, the third estate constituted 97% of the population out of which most of them were peasants (About 90%).

This statistic displays the changes ocurred in the total number of homeless people in France from 2017 to 2022. We can observe that the number of homeless people stagnated at 143,000 until 2020, but reached 330,000 in 2022.

Tourism, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals lead France's diversified economy. The government has partially or fully privatized many large companies but maintains a strong presence in such sectors as power, public transport, and defense.

France, a global power that is no stranger to public uprisings, is facing an unstable political situation amid massive – and at times violent – protests over President Emmanuel Macron's decision to raise the country's retirement age, with another nationwide demonstration underway on Thursday.

The economy relied heavily on agriculture, trade, and the production of luxury goods, and the power and influence of the monarchy played a significant role in shaping economic policies and development.

The City of Paris eventually found it more pertinent to stop replacing it. The Police prefecture also said they will remove these signs to make intervention “from secondary ways” smoother and avoid penalizing residents. Yield to the right remains the general rules, like in traffic circles.

Pollution from cars and trucks seems to be the number one offender, with vehicle exhaust containing many dangerous chemicals that permeate the smoke found in the city, the main ones being Nitrogen Dioxide (NO₂), Sulfur Dioxide (SO₂) as well as Ozone (O3) and a number of other chemicals, including lead and Carbon ...

Why is Paris turning off the lights?

The symbolic gesture is part of a plan aiming to reduce the city's energy bill by 10 percent. La ville lumière is turning off the lights.

In 2020, the poverty rate in France reached 14.6 percent. In recent years, poverty in France has been increasing, affecting both unemployed and working people. In fact, according to Insee, 10.2 percent of economically active persons had a living standard inferior to the poverty rate in 2019.

France's main economic challenges in 2019 were its high rate of unemployment, lagging competitiveness, and sluggish growth. France is the second-largest EU economy after Germany and the second-most populated. 23 However, it has maintained slow population growth since the mid-2000s.

Second Estate was the nobility. They were exempt from many taxes and had the right to collect feudal dues. Nobles also served as officers in the army and held high positions at court. Though the Second Estate only made up about 2% of the population, it owned 20% of the land.

The French Crown's debt was caused by both individual decisions, such as intervention in the American War of Independence and the Seven Years' War, and underlying issues such as an inadequate taxation system.