The massive postwar movement from rural areas to the cities was supplemented by immigration, which also focused on urban areas where employment was available. Because immigrants to the cities tended to be young adults of childbearing age, city dwellers multiplied. Urban population growth in the 30 years after World War II was estimated to be at least 16 million persons. Subsequent urban growth was due in part to expanding city limits and was characterized by urban sprawl, accelerated redistribution from city centres to suburban outskirts, though some rebalancing toward the centre has occurred in recent years.
From about 1975, migratory flows were greatly modified, the most immediate cause being economic. The older industrial regions, such as Nord–Pas-de-Calais and Lorraine, were in decline and had become regions of out-migration. The most dynamic migratory flow was experienced in the deindustrialized Île-de-France région; students and young workers flocked to the greater Paris area, while pensioners retired to the coasts. Growth subsequently switched to the south, to the coastlands of Languedoc and of Provence–Alpes–Côte d’Azur; to the west, in the Atlantic regions of Poitou-Charentes and Pays de la Loire; and to the southwest, in the Midi-Pyrénées and Aquitaine. These shifts reflect a combination of economic decentralization, retirement migration, sunbelt industrialization, changing residential preferences, and expanding tourism. Population increase has also been strong on the southern and western fringes of the Paris Basin, favoured for industrial decentralization from the Île-de-France région.
Since World War II, urban growth in France has been accompanied by marked suburbanization. This trend was initiated much earlier in Paris, a densely built-up city that leveled off at a maximum population of about 2.8 million in the period 1911–54 and declined thereafter. Proportionately the decline set in much earlier: in 1876 the city of Paris had 60 percent of the population of what was to become the Île-de-France région; in 1921, 51 percent; in 1954, 39 percent; and in 2008, 19 percent. The century after 1850 witnessed the rise of the industrialized inner suburbs (the petite couronne) outside the walls of the city. There maximum population was reached in the 1970s, followed by a decline associated with a marked degree of deindustrialization. Since the 1980s, population growth has been concentrated in the outer Paris suburbs (grande couronne), which by 2008 accounted for 44 percent of the total population of the Île-de-France région, compared with 37 percent in the declining inner suburbs.
In the first half of the 20th century, suburban growth, where it did occur, was not the result of middle-class suburbanization, as it was in the United States and the United Kingdom. It was the working class and the lower middle classes that moved out, while higher-income groups endeavoured to maintain a foothold in central Paris. In the postwar period, however, suburbanization took increasingly middle-class forms, with the building up of satellite low-density subdivisions known as “new villages.” Similar postwar suburbanization occurred in cities such as Marseille, Lyon, Lille, and Bordeaux.
Increasingly, the most rapid population growth is relegated to small towns and nominally rural communes on the expanding fringes of the city regions. This dispersal of population is associated with an increasing length of daily commuter movements, with all their human disadvantages, as well as other problems of urban sprawl. Vacation travel, very popular among the French, involves the movement of crowds of people during the peak seasons, particularly during school vacations and in August, when many people take their paid holiday and leave the city. Transport facilities and popular vacation spots become saturated, especially the coastal areas and mountains. Thomas Henry Elkins John N. Tuppen The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Economy
France is one of the major economic powers of the world, ranking along with such countries as the United States, Japan, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Its financial position reflects an extended period of unprecedented growth that lasted for much of the postwar period until the mid-1970s; frequently this period was referred to as the trente glorieuses (“thirty years of glory”). Between 1960 and 1973 alone, the increase in gross domestic product (GDP) averaged nearly 6 percent each year. In the aftermath of the oil crises of the 1970s, growth rates were moderated considerably and unemployment rose substantially. By the end of the 1980s, however, strong expansion was again evident. This trend continued, although at a more modest rate, into the 21st century.
Harvesting grapes in a vineyard at Ay, near Épernay in the Champagne region of France.Serraillier—Rapho/Photo Researchers
During the same postwar period, the structure of the economy was altered significantly. While in the 1950s agriculture and industry were the dominant sectors, tertiary (largely service and administrative) activities have since become the principal employer and generator of national wealth. Similarly, while it was once the heavily urbanized and industrialized regions of northern and northeastern France that were developing most rapidly, in the 1980s these areas began losing jobs and population. Contemporary growth has switched to regions that lie in the south and, to a lesser degree, the west of France.
Despite the dominance of the private sector, the tradition of a mixed economy in France is well established. Successive governments have intervened to protect or promote different types of economic activity, as has been clearly reflected in the country’s national plans and nationalized industries. In the decades following World War II, the French economy was guided by a succession of national plans, each covering a span of approximately four to five years and designed to indicate rather than impose growth targets and development strategies.
The public sector in France first assumed importance in the post-World War II transition period of 1944–46 with a series of nationalizations that included major banks such as the National Bank of Paris (Banque Nationale de Paris; BNP) and Crédit Lyonnais, large industrial companies such as Renault, and public services such as gas and electricity. Little change took place after that until 1982, when the then Socialist government introduced an extensive program of nationalization. As a result, the enlarged public sector contained more than one-fifth of industrial employment, and more than four-fifths of credit facilities were controlled by state-owned banking or financial institutions. Since that period successive right-wing and, more recently, left-of-centre governments have returned most enterprises to the private sector; state ownership is primarily concentrated in transport, defense, and broadcasting.
Postwar economic growth has been accompanied by a substantial rise in living standards, reflected in the increasing number of families that own their home (about half), a reduction in the workweek (fixed at 35 hours), and the increase of vacation days taken each year by the French people. Another indicator of improved living standards is the growth of ownership of various household and consumer goods, particularly such items as automobiles and computers. Over time, however, consumption patterns have altered significantly. As incomes have risen, proportionately less has been spent on food and clothing and more on items such as housing, transportation, health, and leisure. Workers’ incomes are taxed at a high to moderate rate, and indirect taxation in the form of a value-added tax (VAT) is relatively high. Overall, taxes and social security contributions levied on employers and employees in France are higher than in many other European countries. Agriculture, forestry, and fishing