DEMOGRAPHICS

By Alessia Caruso

POPULATION

6

5,630,692 (July 2012 est.)

0

-14 years: 18.7% (male 6,285,130/female 5,998,821)

1

5-24 years: 12% (male 4,025,189/female 3,849,970)

2

5-54 years: 39.2% (male 12,896,692/female 12,804,661)

5

5-64 years: 12.7% (male 4,032,279/female 4,283,020)

6

5 years and over: 17.5% (male 4,857,441/female 6,597,489) (2012 est.)

PAST PRESIDENTS1st: Bonaparte, Louis-Napoléon

2nd: Thiers, Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe

3rd: de Mac-Mahon, Marie Edme Patrice Maurice

4th: Grévy, François Paul Jules

5th: Carnot, Marie François Sadi

6th: Casimir-Perier, Jean Paul Pierre

7th: Faure, Félix François

8th: Loubet, Émile François

9th: Fallières, Clément Armand

10th: Poincaré, Raymond

11th: Deschanel, Paul Eugène Louis

12th: Millerand, Alexandre

13th: Doumergue, Pierre Paul Henri Gaston

14th: Doumer, Joseph Athanase Gaston Paul

15th: Lebrun, Albert François

16th: Auriol, Vincent Jules

17th: Coty, René Jules Gustave

18th: de Gaulle, Charles André Joseph Marie

19th: Pompidou, Georges Jean Raymond

20th: Giscard d Estaing, Valéry Marie René

21st: Mitterrand, François Maurice Adrien Marie

22nd: Chirac, Jacques René

23rd: Sarkozy, Nicolas24th: Hollande, François Gérard Georges Nicolas

RELIGION IN FRANCE

F

rance has traditionally been a Catholic country and today approximately 80% of the

population of France ascribe, at least nominally, to the Catholic religion. In reality,

however, France is a deeply secular country which has seen the role of organized

religion in the lives of people in France diminish ever since the revolutions in in1780

and 1804. Many French people who are counted as belonging to the Catholic religion

have not been. The vast majority of Catholics in France do not attend church

regularly or even at all.

T

he Catholic Church in France is viewed as quite progressive and keeping in step with

the changes that living in modern society brings. The former Archbishop of Paris

since 1981, Jean Marie , was born to Jewish parents in Paris in 1926 and converted to

the Catholic religion at the age of 14.