If the French population grew like the Germans, are the Germans able to unite

The German population from 1800-1900 grew from ~21m to 56m which is a 2.66 fold increase. France's population at 1800 was ~30m and if it grew at the same rate as the Germans it would've reached 80m at 1900 (Making it more populated than the USA). This got me thinking if the Germans didn't out grow the French would the French have allowed them to unite.
 
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The German population from 1800-1900 grew from ~21m to 56m which is a 2.66 fold increase. France's population at 1800 was ~30m and if it grew at the same rate as the Germans it would've reached 80m at 1900 (Making it more populated than the USA). This got me thinking if the Germans didn't out grow the French would the French have allowed them to unite.
German unification in this scenario might very well be less likely, but probably not impossible. After all, a lot might still depend on political maneuvers and the quality of generals during warfare in this TL.
 
But would it work in the first place? I always thought France had reached the limit of people it can feed before Germany.
 
Neither Germany not Britain could feed their own people. They were net foot importers. The point is that the french agriculture was far from its potential because there still were far too many poorly productive properties and micro-properties.

The french sociology made them delay agricultural modernisation by some 50 years. There agriculture became modern and was able to fully exploit its natural comparative advantage in the agricultural-industrial age only after WW2.
 
France took more time to industrialize than its rivals. If we have a stronger French industry - and agricultural mechanization - the population will eventually grow in a faster pace. However, we require a pod during the 1820's-1830's, there are a lot of butteflies until 1870.
 

Cueg

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Whenever I see this question pop up there seems to be a consensus of uncertainty with regard to the decline in fertility rates.

To that, why dont we look at the decline of fertility that is ongoing? The causes are numerous, firmly established, and can be extrapolated to France after the revolution. Some of the relevant causes are :
-Role of women in society
-Urbanization
-Religiosity (specifically with regard to abortion)
-Urbanization
-Social Conscientiousness (you know, violent revolution)

The aforementioned are applicable to France post-revolution, and can be regarded as the complex, nuanced causal factors that bears witness to a drop in fertility rates.

Just my take on the subject.
 
Then, there would have been large-scale French immigration to the Americas and Africa like what the British, Germans, Italians, Jews, Polish, Portuguese, and Spaniards had done.

French Revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic Wars were the causes of stagnation of French population after 1815 and ironically became an immigrant-recipient country in late 19th century because of shortage of workers. French population stagnation, in fact, speed up the industrialization process as less workers mean more investment on technologies and drove wages up.
 
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