According to French political scientist Jérôme Fourquet, the number of newborn males with Arabic or Muslim first names has increased from just one per cent in 1960, to 19 per cent today.

Fourquet noted that the decline in the French birthrate — there were 70,000 fewer children born in 2019 than in 2014 — has led to the growth of Arabic-Muslim names among newborns. He added that “sustained migratory flows, particularly since the beginning of the 2000s”, has also contributed to the trend, Le Figaro reports.

“The study of the prevalence of types of first names among newborns makes it possible in particular to aggregate the strength of legal and illegal migratory flows, because, with some exceptions, all children born on French soil are registered with INSEE [France’s national statistics bureau], even if their parents are illegal,” he added.

France: As Many Muslims as Practising Catholics in 18-29 Year-Old Demographic https://t.co/KdUU5QUgV4 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 26, 2019

To combat the declining birthrate, Fourquet did not advocate the German model of mass migration but said that France should not “lock ourselves into a binary alternative between natalist policies or the use of immigration”.

“If Germany has favoured immigration, it is because the retirement age is already very high and the unemployment rate is at its lowest (3.5 per cent). France could play on these two levers and in particular on the unemployment rate to significantly increase the number of contributors, before resorting to additional immigration,” he said.

Demographic shifts have also been observed among religious groups in France, with a report released last year showing that there were now as many practising Muslims in the 18- to 29-year-old demographic as practising Roman Catholics.

The demographic changes in France have led to several theories regarding the phenomenon including the theory of the “Great Replacement” by French author Renaud Camus.

A Quarter of French Believe ‘Elites’ Using Mass Migration to ‘Replace’ Native Europeans https://t.co/dr2IQVqPQf — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 7, 2019

Often dismissed as a conspiracy theory, Camus has claimed that Western elites — the “Davocracy”, named after the participants of World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland — view people as interchangeable things, rather than human beings, for the sake of profit and ideology.

A survey released in February of last year suggested that as many as one-quarter of the French population subscribed to the theory that “elites” were using mass migration to replace European populations.