Aménager le territoire... Avec quels hommes ? Richesses et contraintes démographiques

When, thanks to its fertility and foreing immigration, the population of France increased by leaps and bounds, the choice of directing this growth towards underpopulated or depopulated areas was not made. Town and country planning tended, on the contrary, to develop a limited number of big towns; farming families left the land in even greater numbers and the « bulge » reached adulthood. This has led to an increasing number of people leaving for the towns over the past ten years. Today, French fertility has dropped, foreing immigration has been suspended and urban growth which had been very rapid before, has diminished. The fact that today fewer farming families leave the land will underline this decrease, for the drop in the number of births in rural areas that has been observed over 28 years leads to a decrease year after year In the number of young country-dwellers reaching adulthood. But the concentration in the past of employment in big centres encourages the future implantation in these centres of new jobs created, at least in the context of present legislation. This fact is in total contradiction with the State's aim to halt rural depopulation. Only compulsory measures to limit the creation of jobs in big towns and to encourage their distribution throughout the country can stop this depopulation. Such action is urgent for even if the depopulation of rural areas by migration is stopped, the active rural population is bound to diminish because of depopulation in the past and because of the resulting drop in births. A development of the whole of France is possible. The means for this exist. What is needed is will power, determination and imagination.