73.6m people and one third over 60
One third of the population will be over 60 and there will be more than 200,000 centenarians by 2060
AS THE National Assembly prepares for its final vote on the changes to the retirement age, a study has revealed that more than a third of the population will be over 60 by 2060.
There will be 200,000 centenarians, 13 times more than at present, as the post-war baby-boomer generation reaps the benefit of decades of advances in medical achievement and the lack of a major world war.
Even by 2014, the number of over-60s will be greater than the under-20s; by 2060, the population of France is expected to have reached 73.6 million. Today it stands at 65.4m in the French Republic, with 62.8m in metropolitan France.
The study, by statistical body Insee, is based on predictions that life expectancy would increase to 91 years for women and 86 for men. Now, one in nine woman at 50 can expect to live to be 100 and one man in 28.
Insee also expects a strong birth rate of 1.95 babies per woman and a immigration rate of more than 100,000 a year.
It expects that the number of under-20s will fall slowly to just 22.1 per cent of the population, against 24.8 per cent at the last census in 2007.
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