There is a crisis (France is officially in danger of entering a recession), there is a lack of work (unemployment at historic highs for Hollande's citizens), yet the French continue to have children. Maybe a little later (the average age for women rises to 30,1 years), but the trademark is still the same, a model to be imitated for many Western countries which instead have been recording a clear demographic decline for years.
In fact, thanks to the very generous laws on "allocations familiales" across the Alps, the children born in 2012 are almost exactly the same as in 2011: 792 against 793, with an average fertility indicator that is confirmed at 2 children per woman, the highest in the Western world. Even the very fertile United States, which in 2007 recorded a 2,12 dropped to 1,89 in 2011, and not to mention Europe, on average below 1,6 children per woman. The only exception is Ireland, which has the same reproductive rate as France, while rich Germany is below the continental average and even worse than Italy with 1,38 (1,39 in Italy).
