Amid the distractions of Donald Trump and Davos, France’s state-owned railway operator decided last week was the opportune time to slip out some news. Welcome to ‘Optimum’, the new and exclusive area of the train where kids are not welcome. Business people and misopedists travelling to and from Paris on the weekday high-speed TGV services will no longer have to tolerate the under-12s.
The operator, SNCF, justified its ban on children by stating it would enhance the travelling experience of those who cherish ‘exclusive comfort in a fully dedicated first-class carriage, with seating arrangements designed to preserve your privacy, for a calm journey, ideal for working or relaxing’. And to ensure that little Gallic brats don’t stray into this haven to shatter this calm, even briefly, it will be ‘located at the end of the train to prevent other passengers from walking through the Optimum-dedicated area.’
But if SNCF hoped this innovation would pass without remark, they were mistaken. In a rare moment of political unity in France, MPs from all parties expressed their outrage at the ban on children. Sarah El Haïry, minister delegate for children, youth and families, called it ‘shocking’, adding: ‘Travelling with children is not a problem to be fixed, but a reality to be supported.’ The left-wing MP Francois Ruffin said banning children from train carriages was the mark of a society that was ‘sick’, and the leader of the centre-right Republicans, Bruno Retailleau, declared it was ‘everything that France must not become’.
The MEP Marion Marechal, niece of Marine Le Pen, demanded government intervention, saying: ‘At a time when our country is in such need of children, it is deplorable that SNCF is spreading such an anti-family message.’ This was a reference to the news this month that the birth rate in France has dropped to its lowest level since 1918.
France’s baby boom began immediately after the end of the second world war, peaking at an average of three children per woman in the late 1940s. It dropped to 2.5 by the early 1970s, then to two by 2010. Last year it was 1.53; put another way, in 2010 there were 828,000 babies born in France and in 2025 there were 645,000. The UK’s birth rate has dropped even lower, falling to around 1.41 children per woman in 2024. There were 594,677 babies born in the UK in 2024, compared with 807,271 in 2010.
The drop has social and economic implications on both sides of the Channel, as a birth rate of 2.1 is required to sustain the size of a population. In a press conference in January 2024, President Emmanuel Macron declared that France needed a ‘demographic rearmament’, and to that end his government would introduce a parental leave initiative that would allow both parents to be with their newborn for six months. This was a bit rich coming from a man who a decade ago served in the socialist government of Francois Hollande, known as the ‘enemy of families’ for his measures that slashed family allowances.
It was instructive that while children are banned from Optimum carriages, pets are not
The reasons for what some have labelled France’s demographic crisis are more complex than parental leave. France has been mired in a cost of living crisis for several years, and raising children costs money. Increasingly, young couples choose to have a pet rather than a child – and it was instructive that while children are banned from Optimum carriages, pets are not.
In a recent op-ed, Le Monde newspaper suggested that France’s plummeting birth rate might be a result of the growing gap between ‘increasingly progressive young women and increasingly conservative young men’. The economist Pauline Grosjean continued: ‘Growth and the opportunities it offers in terms of education and economic independence enable women to break free from domestic and patriarchal constraints.’
But whatever the cause, it seems clear France has fallen out of love with children. Last year the French government expressed its disapproval of the growing number of hotels and restaurants where children were not welcome. ‘There is a growing intolerance, and we must not allow it to take hold,’ said El Haïry. ‘We are pushing children and families out.’
For decades, France was known as the ‘exception’ in a continent where birth rates were on a steady downward trajectory. The French were proud of their fertility. Now they’re proud of their child-free train carriages.
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