(FRANCE) — INSEE released new figures showing immigrants now make up 11.3% of France’s total population, offering the latest official snapshot of a demographic shift that has reshaped public debate over work, housing and integration.
The French national statistics institute said about 7.7 million people living in France are immigrants, using an INSEE definition that counts those “born foreign in a foreign country.” That category covers people who may now hold French citizenship, and INSEE uses it to track demographic change over time without reclassifying people after naturalization.
Definitions and measurement
INSEE’s terminology is central to understanding the numbers. The institute’s “immigrant” category excludes people born in France, even if they hold a foreign nationality, and it excludes people born abroad who were French at birth.
This difference matters in policy arguments that tie immigration to school enrollment, workforce supply, or demand for housing and services, because the measure aims to capture international migration histories rather than current passport status.
Immigrant headcounts and immigrant-share percentages are often used as shorthand for the scale of migration in the population, but they serve a separate purpose from border-flow figures. INSEE’s figures describe who lives in France and how the composition changes, rather than measuring annual entries, departures, or legal status.
The institute’s update, dated Feb. 1, 2026 in the figures provided, is presented as the most comprehensive official data on the country’s shifting demographic landscape.
Origin patterns
INSEE measures “origin” by country of birth. The dataset shows Africa accounts for 48.9% of France’s immigrant population, with Algeria at 12.4%, Morocco at 11.7% and Tunisia at 4.9% among the top countries of birth.
Europe accounts for 30.9%, led by Portugal at 7.3%, Italy at 3.6% and Spain at 3.1%. Asia accounts for 14.3%, with Turkey at 3.4%, while the Americas/Pacific account for 5.9%.
Those shares shape how communities settle and what local institutions need. Concentrations by country of birth can influence demand for language support, the role of diaspora networks, and the development of community infrastructure tied to specific migration corridors.
Interactive tool: An interactive visualization of France’s immigrant population by origin will be available here to explore regional concentrations and country-of-birth breakdowns.
Gender and education
INSEE said that for the first time women outnumber men in the immigrant population, at 52% in 2024. This change can align with patterns such as family migration, shifts in labor demand, and different survival and longevity profiles within migrant communities.
Education levels among newer arrivals also featured in the INSEE snapshot. The institute said 52% of new arrivals aged 25 or older hold higher education qualifications, a figure that tends to feed into arguments about how quickly people can move into skilled work and how much demand there will be for credential recognition systems.
At the same time, the presence of degrees does not automatically translate into a job match. Outcomes can hinge on recognition of qualifications, language barriers, and regional labor demand, which affect entry into regulated occupations and skilled roles.
Immigrants versus foreigners
INSEE also separates “immigrants” from “foreigners,” a distinction that can produce apparently conflicting numbers. The institute said that in 2024 there were 6.0 million “foreigners” in France, defined as residents without French citizenship, representing 8.8% of the population.
That 8.8% figure was slightly lower than the European Union average of 9.6%, INSEE said. The gap between the “foreigners” and “immigrants” totals largely reflects naturalization and the fact that citizenship acquisition does not erase the immigrant-origin classification used in demographic statistics.
The relationship works in both directions: foreigners can be fewer than immigrants because many immigrants become French citizens, while immigrants can remain more numerous because “immigrant” is tied to being “born foreign in a foreign country,” not to current citizenship.
Historical trends and political context
France’s current immigrant share sits within a long historical climb. INSEE’s figures highlighted that the 11.3% marks a steady increase from 1946 (5.0%) and 1975 (7.4%), framing the change as part of a post-war trajectory rather than a short-term spike.
That long-run rise spans phases including post-war reconstruction, decolonization-era ties, EU mobility, family reunification, and education and work migration. The mix matters to recurring political debates over integration versus assimilation.
Housing pressure frequently sits near the center of those arguments. Population growth and settlement patterns can affect demand for housing and public transport, and local officials often link migration-driven demand to strains in specific neighborhoods while also noting newcomers fill jobs that support public services.
Labor-market implications
Recent work by international and French institutions emphasized that immigrants are increasingly qualified and fill gaps in sectors like health and technology. OECD and INSEE reports from late 2025 noted immigrant doctors, nurses and tech workers as examples of how migration interacts with labor shortages.
Those sectors can be sensitive to regulation. Health work often requires recognition of qualifications and licensing, while technology jobs depend on employer demand and the ability of workers to document skills, meaning high educational attainment does not guarantee rapid entry into matching roles.
U.S. DHS/USCIS context
Alongside demographic statistics in France, U.S. immigration agencies issued policy updates in early 2026 that affect cross-border mobility and processing. Those U.S. actions are not tied to France’s 11.3% immigrant-share figure, but they can shape travel planning and family timelines for French residents and nationals.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced a “full-scale reexamination” of immigration benefits for individuals from high-risk countries on Jan. 20, 2026, and USCIS issued a policy memorandum on Jan. 1, 2026 that placed a “Hold and Review” on benefit applications for aliens from additional high-risk countries to ensure “vetting and screening to the maximum degree possible.”
Such holds and extra vetting can mean longer adjudication timelines and more documentation demands. For families and employers, that can translate into uncertainty over start dates, reunification schedules, and travel, particularly when applications depend on coordinated processing across agencies.
In a “Year in Review” statement dated Jan. 20, 2026, DHS said it had “removed more than 675,000 illegal aliens” and added that “USCIS officers are once again empowered to enforce immigration law.” The U.S. State Department also announced an indefinite pause on immigrant visa processing for nationals of 75 countries on Jan. 14, 2026, citing concerns over “public charge” risks.
These U.S. actions relate to vetting, removals and visa operations rather than to France’s demographic makeup. Still, they can be relevant to immigrants in France with multinational family ties, and to French employers and universities that recruit globally because mobility often depends on processing timelines and shifting documentary expectations.
Interactive tool: An interactive timeline and summary of DHS, USCIS and State Department policy updates in early 2026 will be provided here to explore operational changes and their practical implications.
Sources and publications
INSEE’s definitions and figures come from “L’essentiel sur. les immigrés et les étrangers,” which INSEE listed as updated Oct 2025/Feb 2026 in the materials provided. That publication sets out the statistical distinction between immigrants and foreigners and provides the population shares and headcounts referenced in the institute’s release.
U.S. enforcement and operational context in the same period comes from DHS’s Jan. 20, 2026 announcement, “DHS Sets the Stage for Another Historic, Record-Breaking Year,” and from USCIS’s Jan. 1, 2026 “Policy Memorandum: Hold and Review of USCIS Benefit Applications,” identified as PM-602-0194. State Department visa-processing context is reflected in the “Visa Bulletin for February 2026,” posted as a January 2026 reference.
Takeaway
For France, INSEE’s figures offer a single, consistent way to track how the population changes across decades, even as individuals shift citizenship status. The definitions make clear that citizenship and immigrant-origin classifications serve different statistical and policy purposes.
For people moving across borders, the parallel U.S. updates highlight how administrative scrutiny and processing pauses can shape timelines long after demographic trends become headline numbers.
