POPULATION OF FRANCE

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25082, 14 January 1947, Page 3

POPULATION OF FRANCE

DECREASE DURING WAR YEARS 150,000 KILLED in FORCES (From Our Own Correspondent.) NEW YORK, December 15. The population of France dropped by 1,400,000 during the war years, according to figures made public in Paris by the Ministry of Population in the monthly bulletin of its department of statistics, says the Paris correspondent of the “New York Herald-Tribune.” The figures were the final results of a census taken throughout France last March. It showed that the population of France then was 40,500,000, as against 41,900,000 in 1936, when the last pre-war census w as taken. The nation’s military looses, it is estimated, included about 150,000 men killed, while deportations and forced labour resulted in about 300,000 deaths outside French territory. More than 110,000 civilians died as a direct result of war action. There must be added 500,000 deaths in excess of births registered during the occupation, and the loss from the population of 300,000 foreigners who left France at the outbreak of the war.

The Population Ministry’s figures showed an increase by six in the number of cities which have more than 100,000 Inhabitants each, and are classified as “large cities.” Dijon, Le Mans, Limoges, Grenoble. Nimes, and Rennes are the places which have passed the 100.000 mark. The number of places in this category has risen from 17 to 23.

Fourteen of the 17 largest cities of pre-war France have sustained population losses. Paris/which had 2.829,746 inhabitants before the war, now has 2,725.374, a drop of about 3.7 per cent Le Havre, a port which was almost completely destroyed, lost 35 per cent, of its pre-war population. Marseilles, which was listed as having had 1.000,000 inhabitants before the war. has. on paper, surtained a loss of 30 per cent., but officials of the Population Ministry were of the opinion that the 1936 census figure for that Mediterranean port was probably over optimistic.

Toulouse is now the fourth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseilles and Lyons. The population of Toulouse, swollen by Spanish refugees and others, now totals almost 250.000. as against 175,000 in 1939. The census in March showed that there has been a shift of. population from the eastern part of France and the Mediterranean coast and toward the western part of the country, where a more "agricultural of economy prevails. ~