But I loved that quote:
Throughout its modern history France has been obsessed about population levels. Experts have established that around the time of the revolution, French mothers stopped breeding - no one knows why - and a population that had been the largest in Europe fell during the 19th century behind Britain and the emerging Germany.
The Révolution is the cause of France's decline... In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Try all you like, my fine French friend, but you can't fight facts.
It was a pretty serious concern during the Third Republic, particularly on the right.
The Révolution is the cause of France's decline...
The explanation I've seen most often is that the land inheritance laws of the Napoleonic Code were a factor, combined with the fact that so much of France's population was made up of small landowners.
What I don´t understand is how it can be the cause of it, because in theory the diminution of infantile mortality is the main factor and has to come first.
Anyway, France had his demographic boost - lot of active people in the population, less dependant one with less children and not many elders yet - at the end of 18th /beginning of the 19th and squandered it through the revolutionnary and napoleonic wars, and was a bit too early - already stabilized - for riding the industrial revolution.
The third republic obsession with natality was real, and can be easily understood: if for 30 years you were an outlier with less natality, were crushed by expanding neighbours and could not conceive that they will slow their natality one day too, you could have felt uneasy... La répartie est dans l'escalier. Elle revient de suite.
