WI France had >120 million people?

Historically, France was used to be the most populous nation in Western Europe, but the title of being the most populous has been lost due to the costly wars that France had participated (Napoleonic Wars, Franco-Prussian War, World War I, and World War II). While French population although growing but slowly in relative to Germany, German population booms at the 19th century due to the industrialization and their victory over the French in Franco-Prussian War of 1871.

France has huge advantage to have higher population over Germany.

First, French agriculture is far more developed than the neighbors.
Second, it has a larger area (excluding the French colonies).

Third, it has better climate and geography than Germany, Great Britain, Italy, or Spain.

Fourth, France (French nation is one country after the 100 years war over Britain) is far united than Germany (German nation today is still three countries, Germany (Prussia and Bavaria), Austria (Hapburgs), and Switzerland (German speaking areas).

The best TL to get France into a 120 million population in 2010 is to butterfly away the French Revolution at all.
 

Skokie

Banned
Let's not forget birth control. France was a pioneer in this field, starting already in the 18th century*. In England, a "French family" became a euphemism for a two-child household.

*this and similar phenomena in Italy is thought to have something to do with the Catholic Church's teaching on birth control. France and Italy were the Catholic heartlands. The decline in population meant fewer priests and smaller congregations.
 
No, it has a worse climate and hence historically had a lower population. But with new crops (potatoes, mostly) and new agricultural techniques, those difference could be evened, and as a result German population grew. Now, yes, Germany did not only caught up to but surpass France, but the reason for that is probably, as had been said here by others, that the average prosperity of the French was in early modern ages and even in the first half of the 19th century still higher than that of the Germans, so the normal effects of wealth, like lower birthrates, kicked in. Really, the recently reunited Germany in the 1870s and 1880s had a lot in common with China nowadays - a real explosion of wealth carried (among other things) by low labour costs. So before it was very much worse off than France, and afterwards better.

I find most of the above dubious, but will focus on one particular element. If declining French birthrates are simply due to the "normal effects of wealth," why did we not see a similar pattern in the somewhat richer United Kingdom?
 
Have to agree. Wealth alone does not reduce population. But as you move into the more modern periods, it's where to employ those people. Automation has killed far more jobs than outsourcing ever has and if you don't think your kids can get good jobs you are going to have less kids generally speaking once you hit a certain level of wealth.
 
I concur with Earling and Stevep.

While the revolutionary wars and, of course, the Napolonic era had a remarkable effect on the birth rates in the first decades of the 19th century, the unusually early demographic transition is France seems to be related, to me, to several circumstances :

-the egalitarian inheritance laws were a very strong incentive for French peasants to control their birthrate in order to have one or, at worst, two sons, to keep (and even expand) the family farm. It was especially true in the South and in the Bassin Parisien, which, while being vastly different, espeicially regarding their agricultural performance, share a common feature : those zones were quite indifferent to religion even during the 18th century. And, as a matter of fact, the most prolific areas in France were (and are still a bit) the most Catholic ones. No religious pressure here.

-The previous point is reinforced by something very important : unlike Prussia, some area in the Isles, Sicily, Spain, and most of Eastern Europe, France, after 1789, has not had any rural proletariat, because of the dismantlement of the large, nobility-owned rural domains. The Revolution has been, among many other things, an agrarian reform. And, while the small farmer has become the symbol of the French nation, and especially of the French republic (the free owner of its land, neither red worker or feudal lord), he has also been, through his indivdual land and birth control strategy, the main responsabile for demographic decline. On the opposite, the countless rural masses in the other countries, deprived from land, had only their workforce, and their children's ones, to ensure their survival : hence a strong demographic growth, especially when the effects of better medical system and alimentation and new opportunities offered by the Industrial revolution (Germany, UK, later Italy) or immigration (the same, plus Estern Europe and Scandinavia) set conditions for the persistence of a large rural working class AND the thriving of a even larger urban working class.

-the industrial revoltion in France has been in many ways a failure during the 19th : few private entrepreneurs (and I suspect the end of the landowning nobility and the weakness of the mercheant bourgeoisie has something to do with it) ; cultural hostility to urbanisation ; economic sustainability of the small-farm bases rural structure. As a result, the urban working class, which was in Germany, especially, the spearhead of the demographic growth, has been remarkably smaller in France until the 1920's. You may note, by the way, that a plurality of the workers in the North, in Lorraine or in Paris were immigrants from Belgium and Italy, especially, and after from Poland.
 
I've read somewhere that one of the causes of demographical decline of France after Napoleonian Wars was inheritance law, as codified in Code Civil - basically land had to be divided equally between all offspring, while in Germany monetary value had to be divided.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
I concur with Earling and Stevep.

While the revolutionary wars and, of course, the Napolonic era had a remarkable effect on the birth rates in the first decades of the 19th century, the unusually early demographic transition is France seems to be related, to me, to several circumstances :

-the egalitarian inheritance laws were a very strong incentive for French peasants to control their birthrate in order to have one or, at worst, two sons, to keep (and even expand) the family farm. It was especially true in the South and in the Bassin Parisien, which, while being vastly different, espeicially regarding their agricultural performance, share a common feature : those zones were quite indifferent to religion even during the 18th century. And, as a matter of fact, the most prolific areas in France were (and are still a bit) the most Catholic ones. No religious pressure here.

-The previous point is reinforced by something very important : unlike Prussia, some area in the Isles, Sicily, Spain, and most of Eastern Europe, France, after 1789, has not had any rural proletariat, because of the dismantlement of the large, nobility-owned rural domains. The Revolution has been, among many other things, an agrarian reform. And, while the small farmer has become the symbol of the French nation, and especially of the French republic (the free owner of its land, neither red worker or feudal lord), he has also been, through his indivdual land and birth control strategy, the main responsabile for demographic decline. On the opposite, the countless rural masses in the other countries, deprived from land, had only their workforce, and their children's ones, to ensure their survival : hence a strong demographic growth, especially when the effects of better medical system and alimentation and new opportunities offered by the Industrial revolution (Germany, UK, later Italy) or immigration (the same, plus Estern Europe and Scandinavia) set conditions for the persistence of a large rural working class AND the thriving of a even larger urban working class.

-the industrial revoltion in France has been in many ways a failure during the 19th : few private entrepreneurs (and I suspect the end of the landowning nobility and the weakness of the mercheant bourgeoisie has something to do with it) ; cultural hostility to urbanisation ; economic sustainability of the small-farm bases rural structure. As a result, the urban working class, which was in Germany, especially, the spearhead of the demographic growth, has been remarkably smaller in France until the 1920's. You may note, by the way, that a plurality of the workers in the North, in Lorraine or in Paris were immigrants from Belgium and Italy, especially, and after from Poland.

I tend to disagree, Denmark had a major land reform around the French revolution, which resulted in dismantling of much of the major estates, and the creation of large class of freeholding, middleclass farmers, but it didn't stop the creation of a large rural proletariat or the great population explosion, while smaller than in Norway or Sweden in the 19th century it continued for longer. What you forget are that France by 1800 had adopted much of the new agricultural technics and had gotten the benefits of large state, while for much of the North Europe these thing only hit in the 19th century.
 
I tend to disagree, Denmark had a major land reform around the French revolution, which resulted in dismantling of much of the major estates, and the creation of large class of freeholding, middleclass farmers, but it didn't stop the creation of a large rural proletariat or the great population explosion, while smaller than in Norway or Sweden in the 19th century it continued for longer. What you forget are that France by 1800 had adopted much of the new agricultural technics and had gotten the benefits of large state, while for much of the North Europe these thing only hit in the 19th century.

I dare say that I did not include Scandinavia in my hypothesis, mainly because the industrial production has soared late in the 19 th century (I could tease you and add that I don't care a bit about Legomark, but I won't).

While I could follow you when you stress the role of the state in France, I'm afraid you have a false view of the agriculture in France. If the corn producers around Paris have made their technical revolution during the last decades of the 18 th, French agriculture has modernised quite late, and in many places after WWI or WWII. Juste compare the production figures with the part of total population employed in agriculture in France, Britain and Germany.
 
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