As u/sataniel98 said the population of the core of France is much lower, about 27 million people.

As for your other question you might find this other answer interesting: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1wn9qr/why_did_the_french_population_grow_much_less_than/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

And this answer has a number of links to other similar questions that could answer it more in depth: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1mwlvq/why_did_frances_population_stagnate_in_the_1800s/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Check the great answer by /u/etan-tan, they brought most of the point I would have want to talk about, there is just one idea I think I can add however. For context I have a licence degree in history from France and took a great class on the religious anthropology of France from the Revolution to the council of Vatican 2.

What I want to outline is the corrolation between three maps, the maps of priests who refused to signe the national convention of the clergy during the Revolution, the map "Boulard" which represent the result of the years long investigation by the Catholic church on the state of religious practice in 1947 and finally the map of the current rate of children by women in 2003-2007. I would have prefere to include a map of the rate of children by women during the 19th century but I can't find it in my files. Religious antrhoplogic study have, since the 60s, studied the correlation between the area where most priest refused the convention, chiefly due to it's requirement to be loyal to the State first, and the area that the 1947 marked as still very heavily practicing. Those area can be packed in four zone : Brittany, Alsace, the north (Pas-de-Calais) and the center. There is also a correlation with the birth rate map that shows those area tend to have a higher natality rate. This tend to lend credance to the idea of a cululral factor in the comparable low birth rate in France compared to other country. Now, I am very carefull with this because it is very much in debate within the accademical community. And it is by any means the sole or major explenation, but it has gathered more and more interest in the last two decade as a possible subject for further research.

The map of conventional priest where lighter shade indicate higher rate of refracarian priest

The 1947 Map Boulard where darker shade indicate what Boulard considered fulle catholic parish, where white indicate country where missionnary should be sent ("pays de mission")

The 2009 map showing the number of children per women by the national instute of Statitic and Economic Studies where darker shade pink shows higer birth rate

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Really surprised by French overseas. Thought they all but Guiana to be less than 100 thousands

Why is central France less populated than the southern and northern regions?

Ah, the ugly new regions !

I remember when they changed them. "Greater Aquitaine Empire Nouvelle-Aquitaine will be larger than Austria or Portugal" they said. Really, they actually sold it like that. They were so happy of their own genius idea at the Conseil Régional

Nouvelle-Nouvelle-Aquitaine will be larger than the Moon

Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Occitanie should be in orange, right ?

Nice

I got a real Eiffel with that one

When you say non-European do you mean France d'outre-mer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_France)?

France refuses to do statistics on ethnicity, because it would be racist. Which means we have no numbers, and it makes it really hard to point systemic racism... (like, the number of POC in prison compared to non-POC, or the average income depending on race, or the median lifespan... no stats on any of that.)

We do have some stats on nationality, see https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_en_France

We have no ethnic statistics so no idea , most of the number you can find on the web a probably wrong

French⊆European ∴ { x ∊ French | x ∉ European } = ∅

It’s the same as the population of anywhere... it’s the number of people living there.

About 67 million

Ouais pas mal, bof qd mm

Baguettes

Baguette

So it looks like most people in France live only in one city, but why? Was the rest of the land too harsh to settle in?

If you looks at Europes biggest cities, France only has Paris in that list.

Had France followed the same demographic path as its neighbors, there would be 110-130 million people in metropolitan France today.

I'm phoquing glad that's not the case.

I live in one of those little peaks away from Paris, and it's super nice. Places like England, the Netherlands, or Northern Italy feel overpopulated and crowded to me.

Shows just how dense Paris said. That said, the population density bar for Lyon and Marseille is still significantly higher(and thinner too) compared to the typical American city outside the northeast when doing the same thing with US population density map

Post-Revolution France did everything to keep France hyper-centralized around Paris. Crushing any regional identity, any regional culture. Kids in school were literally shamed for speaking their inferior dialect.

Still today, every TGV line has to go either to or from Paris. You want to go from Lyon to Bordeaux ? How about a quick détour to visit the Eiffel Tower?

Every single national TV or national newspapers are in Paris. The German situation with the ZDF located in Mainz is simply unthinkable for a french person.

Isn't that because the countryside is basically empty?

I didn't expect to ever see a map of France without Paris that's definitely a first

Got a bit confused by the Ile de France inset, but for anyone also puzzled the white colour in the inset is a different scale to the white colour on the general map.

For French people on this sub I have a question- what kind of cultural traditions, dress and food do you notice in Metropolitan France in areas that have a large minority of people from overseas territories. I have little awareness of Renuinon or Mayotte or French Guinanas culture

I have ancestors who lived in one of the top-rightmost departments. (They were Hanoverans).

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