Diets, TV and love: How the average Frenchman or Frenchwoman really lives

Local France

4 days ago

French is a good country when it comes to statistics - its population is regularly surveyed and polled, and the national
statistics agency Insee
does a good job of making data public.
Which means that we can build a good picture of how the average Frenchman and Frenchwoman live their lives.
With the obvious caveat that an average won't apply to the entire 67-million strong population, here's how the modern Frenchie lives, loves and laughs.
Age and children
The average (mean) age for Frenchmen in 2025 is 41.3, while the average Frenchwoman is 44.1. The population as a whole is getting older - back in 2014 the average man was 39.3, and the average woman was 42.1.
Those average-age people aren't worrying about death any time soon - the average Frenchman has a life expectancy of 80, while women can expect to live to be 85.7.
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They might be looking ahead to retirement, though - in 2021 the average retirement age in France was 63.1. The pension age is
something of a political hot potato in France
, it is currently gradually rising from 62 to 64 after Emmanuel Macron pushed through highly contentious reforms to the pension system.
That age is when people most people can start to collect their pensions - lower pension ages exist for people in physically strenuous jobs, meanwhile some people enjoy work and choose to stay in the workforce past the legal pension age. Current prime minister François Bayrou is 74, while Senate leader Gérard Larcher is 75.
Nevertheless, most people retire at or near the official pension age, with an average retirement age of 63.1 - giving an average retirement of 22.6 years for women and 16.9 years for men.
At the other end of the life cycle, the
average family size in France
is now 1.6 children per couple, a fall from 2.0 in 2024. The average age of a French first-time mum is 29.
While some people are choosing not to have children at all, smaller family sizes are the norm even for people who do have kids - a survey in 2024 found that the average 'ideal number of children' per family was 2.3, compared to 2.7 in 1998.
Money
The average French person is an employee, and not a well-paid one. Data from 2023 shows that 26.9 million French people work as salaried employees, while just 3.3 million are fully self-employed.
Insee's 2023 data shows that the average full-time employee in the private sector earns €2,730 net per month, while the average public sector employee earns €2,600 net per month (although that falls to €2,340 if we take out relatively well-paid medics).
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Of those 27 million employees, more than half - 17 million - are earning the minimum wage (
le smic
) of €1,426 net per month (€21,621.60 per year pre tax or €17,115.69 after tax).
The most common job among men is being a driver - comprising bus drivers and hauliers but not couriers - while women are most likely to be teachers.
France has a decent number of people out of the workforce - from a population of 67 million only 30.8 million are classed as 'economically active' - the rest are either children, pensioners (roughly 25 percent of the population, or 16.7 million people, are retired), job-seekers, students or not working for other reasons (eg stay-at-home parents or people with an illness or disability that leaves them unable to work).
This large non-working population means that France can come out quite badly on international comparisons of work and productivity - although if you analyse the work done by the working population France come out higher than the European average, and
even higher than the Germans
.
The average work week in France is 39.6 hours.
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Education
The average French person does not have a university degree - although only just. Across the entire population 45 percent of people have a degree while 55 percent of people don't.
Higher education also contributes to late entry into the workforce - the average age for getting a first job in France is 19. A relatively generous grant system coupled with low tuition fees means that many students do not need to get part-time jobs while they are studying.
Love life
The average French person lives with a spouse or partner, although those living alone is a fast-growing group that is predicted to become the norm within the next few decades.
At present France has a population of 67 million people living in 30.3 million households - a household includes couples, single parents living with children, house-shares or inter-generational family living.
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Insee's most recent detailed breakdown of family living situations is from 2016 and it shows that half of the population of France is living with a partner - 25.5 percent of households are a couple without children, 25.3 percent are a couple with children.
However 35.8 percent of households consist of a single person, while 9 percent are single-parent families and the remaining 4.4 percent are 'complex households' that don't fit in to the above patterns - that would include house-shares and homes where multiple generations are living together.
The number of households is growing in France as more and more people choose to live alone - it is projected that there will be 32 million households in 2050, even though the population is not set to grow.
But the average French person is not married - data from 2023 shows that just 42 percent of the population of France is married, with that number falling below the 50 percent bar in 2008 and continuing to decline - despite the fact that in 2024 24,000 weddings took place.
The average age at marriage is also steadily rising, reaching 37.3 years for women and 39.8 years for men in 2022.
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Of those who do choose to formalise their relationship, most (72 percent) opt for marriage with just eight percent choosing a civil partnership (Pacs), and most couples are opposite sex - in 2022 same-sex partnerships accounted for three percent of weddings and five percent of civil partnerships (Pacs).
Your average French person is likely to have had sex at least once in the last year - but overall the population is getting less sexually active.
In 2023, 77.2 percent of women aged 18 to 69 reported having sexual intercourse in the past year, a fall from 84 percent in 1992. In the same year 81.6 percent of men in the same age bracket said they had had sex - down from 92 percent in 1992.
Crucially, women report being happier with the amount of sex that they are having.
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Revealed - the real sex lives of the French✎
Lifestyle
The average Frenchie is an urban creature - 79.2 percent of the population lives in towns.
In total 10.7 million people live in Paris and its suburbs while 16 million people live in another large town such as Bordeaux, Marseille or Lyon (between 200,000 and 1.9 million inhabitants). Around 14 million people live in the country while the remaining 27 million live in smaller towns.
The average household has 99 electrical appliances, six of which will be unused
according to an in-depth survey
done by an anti-waste charity in collaboration with the government's Ademe environment agency.
The living room has the most appliances (24), followed by the bedroom with 22, the cellar, bathroom and other ancillary rooms (laundry room, storeroom etc) are next, with around 10 appliances followed by the attic (6) and the garden/terrace/balcony (3).
The average French person has at least one holiday a year, although
40 percent of people surveyed
said that they don't go away on holiday at least once, for financial reasons.
When they turn on the TV, their choice will be quiz shows or reality TV - data on the
most-watched programmes in 2024
(excluding special events like sports matches) showed that the daytime quiz show
Les Douze Coups de Midi
was the most-watched programme, followed by the reality TV shows
Koh-Lanta
and
L'amour est dans le pré
.
Neither of them smoke - despite its smokey image, just
31.8 percent
of French people actually smoke.
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Food and drink
You might imagine your average Frenchie feasting on French classics like
coq au vin
, but in fact for several years running the winner of the annual survey '
le plat préféres des français'
(France's favourite dish), has been the North African staple of tagine and cous cous that is widely available at inexpensive restaurants in almost every French town.
In 2025, the survey tried to ring the changes by asking respondents which dish best 'represents France to the world' - and the classic beef stew boeuf bourguignon came out top.
A survey on the most-consumed dishes in France found that
poulet rôti et frites
(roast chicken and chips) came out on top, followed by cassoulet, pizza and then cous cous.
Don't assume your Frenchman or Frenchwoman is drinking wine either - just one in 10 people in France drink alcohol every day and wine consumption dropped from 120 litres per year in 1980 to 40 litres per year in 2019.
READ ALSO
:
ANALYSIS: Why the French are drinking less and less wine✎
They're highly likely to be eating bread though - some 10 billion baguettes are consumed every year in France - that's 320 every second.
The average
So there you have it - your average Frenchman is 41.3 years old and works as a driver - he'll work another 21.8 years and then retire, after which he'll live for another 16.9 years.
He lives in a town with a female partner to whom he is not married and together they have 1.6 children. He will have had sex at least once within the last year (with his partner? Who can say, the data is not that detailed) and likes to eat
cous cous
.
Your average Frenchwoman is 44.1 and is a teacher, a job she will stay in for another 19 years before enjoying 22.6 years of retirement.
She lives with a male partner, she had her first child at the age of 29 and lives in a home with 99 electrical appliances. In her spare time she likes watching quiz shows and reality TV and she has at least one holiday per year. She eats bread every day.
A note on the data
Unless otherwise stated, all data comes from the French national statistics agency Insee. It includes mainland France and the French overseas territories, with the exception of Mayotte, and counts anyone legally resident in France, even if they are not French citizens.