Capital: Paris
Population: About 60 million
Language: French
Currency: Euro

The 1999 census quoted the French population as being nearly 60,186,000, of which over 58.5 million live in France itself (including Corsica), while the rest live overseas in the departments of Guadaloupe, French Guyana, Martinique and Reunion. Almost three quarters of the French population inhabit urban areas in the north and east of France, though recent times have seen a shift away from industrial cities towards rural areas. This trend has helped to reverse a decline in the rural population and ties in with measures implemented by some local authorities to regenerate dying villages by linking them to larger towns, thereby improving access to services for local people.

Over 15% of the French population is over 65, reflecting the fact that France is still growing in popularity with retirees from other EU countries, especially the UK, Germany and the Netherlands. The number of foreign residents has risen to around 4.3 million (over 7% of the total population) - 1.6 million are from EU countries, mostly Portuguese, Spanish and Italians. Another 1.3 million are North African immigrants, many from France's former colony Algeria, but also from Morocco and Tunisia.

EU immigrants have integrated without difficulty into French society, but acceptance of North African and Arab immigrants is less widespread. Conspicuous by their race, lifestyle and predominantly Muslim religion, this group has been much slower to integrate. Unfortunately, many live in ghettos with large families and very low incomes. Black immigrants, mostly French citizens from the Caribbean colonies, number around 700,000 - they have integrated successfully, most are now well educated and middle class.

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