As promised, here is the result for the French metropolitan areas from the 2013 census.
The other day I gave the metro areas which grew the most in 2012:
- Saint-André (Réunion): +2.62%
- Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni: +2.26%
- Béziers: +2.09%
- Nîmes: +2.04%
- Ajaccio: +1.99%
- Annecy: +1.84%
- Bordeaux: +1.72%
- Montauban: +1.69%
- Montpellier: +1.66%
- Toulouse : +1.63%
- Royan: +1.59%
- Rennes: +1.48%
- Narbonne: +1.45%
And this is the growth rate for the 25 largest metro areas of France + Geneva in 2012:
- Bordeaux:
+1.72%
- Montpellier:
+1.66%
- Toulouse:
+1.63%
- Rennes:
+1.48%
- Geneva (CH + FR):
+1.30% (French part:
+2.74% ; Swiss part:
+0.53%)
- Nantes:
+1.24%
- Lyon:
+1.07%
- Angers:
+0.87%
- Lille:
+0.80%
- Dijon:
+0.70%
- Tours:
+0.68%
- Avignon:
+0.67%
- Grenoble:
+0.67%
- Clermont-Ferrand:
+0.64%
- Strasbourg:
+0.60%
- Orléans:
+0.56%
- Paris:
+0.52%
METROPOLITAN FRANCE: +0.51%
- Saint-Etienne:
+0.47%
- Caen:
+0.44%
- Marseille:
+0.42%
- Rouen:
+0.30%
- Toulon:
+0.12%
- Metz:
+0.05%
- Nice:
-0.01%
- Douai-Lens:
-0.31%
- Nancy:
-0.39%
These were the metro areas which experienced the largest absolute population growth in 2012:
- Paris: +64,008
- Lyon: +23,608
- Toulouse: +20,757
- Bordeaux: +19,904
- Nantes: +11,102
- Geneva (CH + FR): +10,943 (French part: +8,020; Swiss part: +2,923)
- Rennes: +10,208
- Montpellier: +9,445
- Lille: +9,376
- Marseille: +7,207
- Nîmes: +5,299
- Strasbourg: +4,579
- Grenoble: +4,535
- Annecy: +4,062
- Perpignan: +3,899
- Angers: +3,530
- Béziers: +3,462
- Avignon: +3,445
- Tours: +3,280
- Bayonne: +3,084
- Clermont-Ferrand: +3,021
As a result, this was the population of the metro areas on January 1, 2013 (the only change in ranking compared to Jan. 2012 was between Bordeaux and Lille, but Lille here includes only the French part of the metro area):
1- Paris: 12,405,426
2- Lyon: 2,237,676
3- Marseille: 1,734,277
4- Toulouse: 1,291,517
5- Bordeaux: 1,178,335 (
+1)
6- Lille: 1,175,828 (
-1)
7- Nice: 1,004,826
8- Nantes: 908,815
[Geneva (CH + FR): 855,135]
9- Strasbourg: 773,447
10- Rennes: 700,675
11- Grenoble: 684,398
12- Rouen: 660,256
13- Toulon: 611,978
14- Montpellier: 579,401
15- Douai-Lens: 539,322
16- Avignon: 518,981
17- Saint-Etienne: 515,240
18- Tours: 487,023
19- Clermont-Ferrand: 472,943
20- Nancy: 432,788
21- Orléans: 425,495
22- Angers : 407,295
23- Caen: 405,409
24- Metz: 389,898
25- Dijon: 380,236
Now of course what's perhaps even more interesting is to find out which metro areas attracted the most people, and which metro areas lost people. In order to do that, we have to subtract the natural increase (births minus deaths) from the absolute population growth. That way we get the net migration of each metro area.
I've done these calculations. Here is the net migration of the French metro areas in 2012. Note that it's the sum of both international net migration AND domestic net migration (migration between different parts of France).
Net migration of the metro areas in 2012:
- Bordeaux:
+15,193
- Toulouse:
+12,312
- Lyon:
+6,386
- Geneva (FR + CH):
+6,343 (French part:
+5,826 ; Swiss part:
+517)
- Montpellier:
+6,085
- Rennes:
+5,478
- Nantes:
+5,283
- Nîmes:
+4,255
- Perpignan:
+3,416
- Béziers:
+3,320
- Bayonne:
+3,188
- Annecy:
+2,940
- Clermont-Ferrand:
+1,666
- Tours:
+1,550
- Avignon:
+1,282
- Dijon:
+1,189
- Angers:
+1,167
- Strasbourg:
+943
- Toulon:
+764
- Saint-Etienne:
+531
- Grenoble:
+506
- Lille:
+353
- Caen:
+245
- Orléans:
-325
- Marseille:
-1,006
- Metz:
-1,170
- Rouen:
-1,282
- Nice:
-1,439
- Nancy:
-3,108
- Douai-Lens:
-3,471
- Paris:
-46,551
Here we can see some interesting changes compared to the list of metro areas by absolute population growth. The Bordeaux metro area attracted more people than the Toulouse metro area in 2012. This is the 2nd year in a row that Bordeaux attracts more than Toulouse. Yet because Toulouse has a bigger natural increase than Bordeaux, it manages to have an absolute population growth just ahead of Bordeaux (that's because Bordeaux attracts more retirees than Toulouse, the Bordeaux metro area including the coastline from Lacanau to Cap Ferret, so its population is older and its natural increase only half that of Toulouse).
Among all those metro areas, the one that has the highest rate of natural increase is the Paris metro area. Its rate of natural increase was +0.90% in 2012. That means if the net migration of the Paris metro area was 0 (as many people coming as leaving), it would grow by +0.90%. But then the Paris metro area also has the biggest negative net migration in France, so that it sinks its population growth.
The net migration of the Paris metropolitan area improved in 2012 though. In 2011 it stood at -64,952, whereas in 2012 it stood "only" at -46,551. That's because France attracted more immigrants in 2012 than in previous years, and they settle predominantly in the Paris area.
Geneva is really crazy. The French part alone has a net migration higher than much larger and very attractive metro areas like Rennes or Nantes!
(the French part of the Geneva metro area has only 300,000 inh. compared to 909,000 for Nantes for example, and yet a higher net migration)
In the north of France, the big surprise is the Lille metro area: it is for the first time in a long, long time registering positive net migration. In 2012 Lille attracted more people than those who left!
Among all those metro areas, only 2 have more deaths than births: Toulon metro area, where there were 23 more deaths than births in 2012, and Bayonne metro area (which includes the entire French Basque coast to the Spanish border) where there were 104 more deaths than births in 2012. Bayonne manages to offset that by attracting many people (retirees mostly, hence the negative natural increase), but Toulon had a net migration of only +764 in 2012, so that its population was stagnant.
Nice metro area is an interesting case. It still manages to have more births than deaths despite its many retirees (its rate of natural increase was +0.13% in 2012; not much, but positive nonetheless), but it lost population because of negative net migration.
Lille and Douai-Lens are also two very interesting cases. All these past years, they both had negative net migration (except Lille now for the 1st time registered positive net migration), but the rate of natural increase in the Lille metro area is +0.77%, whereas in Douai-Lens it's only +0.33% (despite very high fertility rates in both areas). This suggests that in Lille it's the retirees who left during all these years, leaving only young people and boosting the rate of natural increase, whereas in Douai-Lens it's apparently the young people who left, leaving the retirees (former miners) who sink the rate of natural increase. So two metro areas with negative net migration for decades, but a totally different sort of negative net migration.
These are the French metro areas with the highest rates of natural increase in 2012 (these are, by definition, the youngest and most child-productive French metro areas, those which attract the most young people, and also those which the retirees flee from):
- Paris: +0.90%
- Lyon: +0.78%
- Lille: +0.77%
- Rennes: +0.69%
- Toulouse: +0.66%
- Nantes: +0.65%
- Orléans: +0.64%
And these are the French metro areas (only those that I've checked; there may be other and worse) with the lowest rates of natural increase in 2012 (these are, by definition, the metro areas attracting the most the retirees, or losing the most their young people, with the many old people sinking the natural increase):
- Metz: +0.35%
- Douai-Lens: +0.33%
- Nancy: +0.33%
- Clermont-Ferrand: +0.29%
- Perpignan: +0.16%
- Nice: +0.13%
- La Rochelle: +0.09%
- Béziers: +0.09%
- Toulon: -0.00%
- Bayonne: -0.04%