Catherine Vautrin in Italy for "demographic rearmament": should we really follow Meloni's example?

A trip to find answers. While the French birth rate is at its lowest since the Second World War, with 1.62 children per woman, Minister Catherine Vautrin (Labor, Health, Solidarity and Families) is traveling to Italy this Monday, June 21, and this Tuesday to meet with her counterparts in search of answers to encourage the birth rate .

Despite an average birth rate of 1.18 children per woman on the other side of the Alps, Giorgia Meloni, the far-right Italian Prime Minister, has declared a general mobilization to repopulate her country through social aid and tax breaks. This is an example that the French government is following, in line with the "demographic rearmament" announced by Emmanuel Macron in January 2024 .

"Today, the number of children per woman is 1.6, whereas for a long time it was 2.02. But the desire for children still reaches 2.2 children per woman. Clearly, we are at the foot of the demographic wall and I am sounding the alarm," the minister told our colleagues at L'Express .

If the birth rate is so worrying in France, it's because we're currently far enough away from the 2.1 children per woman required for population renewal to be assured. The problem is that we've been below the two-child-per-woman mark for over 10 years.

That's still more than our Italian neighbors, the only Western country with the lowest birth rate, with an average of 1.18 babies per woman. In 2024, the country recorded 370,000 births, almost half as many as in France. It's called a "demographic winter."

A situation that is causing concern in high places. In an attempt to boost Italy's birth rate, which has been in freefall since the 1990s, far-right leader Giorgia Meloni , a supporter of the "great replacement" theory, has been raising the issue of Italy's birth rate since her election, evoking, for example, births a few decades ago, when "children were still being born even in times of war or when people were living in poverty."

The attempt to end Italy's demographic winter involves a €1,000 birth bonus for young parents, accompanied by the elimination of social security contributions for mothers of two or more children. There is also talk of a €3,600 nursery bonus for low-income families.

Since last January, medically assisted procreation (MAP) has been virtually free for heterosexual couples, but only for them. But this pro-natalist policy isn't solely driven by economic measures. Recently, anti-abortion groups have been granted access to centers where abortions, or voluntary termination of pregnancy, are performed. These activists can thus dissuade women from having abortions.

Despite this, Meloni's campaign does not seem to have any effect.

It seems that even if our Italian neighbors are not, for the moment, achieving convincing results, France still seems to be seeking advice. Elsewhere in Europe, the birth rate is also an issue that governments are tackling head-on.

In Hungary, led by far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban , women with four children are exempt from paying taxes for life, and by 2029, this tax exemption will apply to all women with at least two children. This policy has also so far failed. Elsewhere in the world, the problem seems similar: China and Turkey have both observed a decline in the birth rate.

The only countries and regions in the world that are champions in birth rates remain Israel, where the birth rate was still close to three children per woman on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides before October 7. This was referred to as a "war of the wombs."

Other countries are not experiencing the crisis, such as Afghanistan and some Asian countries, the Middle East, a handful of Latin American countries, but especially sub-Saharan African countries. The Central African Republic, for example, has a birth rate of 6.4 children per woman. This means that by 2100, there will be more children in sub-Saharan Africa than in the rest of the world.