France counts roughly six million foreign nationals in total, about 8.8 per cent of the population, and the balance of where they come from has swung markedly over two generations – from three-quarters European in 1968 to around half African today.

The clearest new trend is the rise of Americans, and the comparison with the British numbers is striking:

• Americans are now the fastest-growing English-speaking group, with roughly 15,000 first-time residency permits issued in 2025 — up about 14 per cent on the year and close to double the British intake. They concentrate in Paris and on the Riviera, and the mix leans toward students, remote professionals, and a distinct post-2024 “lifestyle”.

• Britons are stabilizing rather than growing: fewer than 8,000 first-time permits in 2025, down year on year, as the Brexit-era surge works its way through.

• Canadians, Australians and Irish form a smaller but steady English-speaking layer beneath that – roughly 15–20,000, 10,000 and 10–15,000 respectively – much of it working-holiday visas and family ties.

• France’s largest foreign communities overall remain Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian and Turkish, a reminder that the Anglophone story, while the one our industry tends to notice, sits within a much larger and more diverse picture.

The wider point is that the map of who moves to France is being redrawn — away from the European retirement-and-second-home market of the past thirty years and toward something younger, more global, and driven as much by work and study as by the search for a place in the sun.