DEMOGRAPHICS

By Alessia Caruso

POPULATION

65,630,692 (July 2012 est.)

0-14 years: 18.7% (male 6,285,130/female 5,998,821)

15-24 years: 12% (male 4,025,189/female 3,849,970)

25-54 years: 39.2% (male 12,896,692/female 12,804,661)

55-64 years: 12.7% (male 4,032,279/female 4,283,020)

65 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, Nicolas 24th: Hollande, François Gérard Georges Nicolas

RELIGION IN FRANCE

France 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.

The 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.