Wealth in France has increased over the past 20 years due to the rising value of property, a new national statistics study shows.
The report, called Revenus et patrimoine des ménages, édition 2024, was published on October 17 by national statistics bureau Insee.
How wealthy are households?
Insee defines ‘gross wealth’ as the total amount of assets held by a household, comprising:
Financial assets (savings accounts, life insurance, shares, etc.)
Property (main and second homes, garages, etc.)
Professional assets
It defines ‘net wealth’ as ‘gross wealth’ minus any borrowing.
Its findings on gross wealth concluded:
Across all wealth brackets:
30% of the population declared their gross wealth as less than €33,200
60% declared their gross wealth between €33,200 and €716,000
10% declared their gross wealth as above €716,000
Half the population had a standard of living of less than €2,028 per month in 2022, Insee said.
Insee also found that the average gross wealth of people living in mainland France had increased significantly in the past 26 years, but that this did not apply to everyone equally. Those with the least wealth had disproportionately less than those with the most.
"Between 1998 and 2021, the average gross wealth held by households living in mainland France increased by a factor of 2.5 in current euros (an average increase of 4.1% per year),” it said.
Yet, it added: “This trend has not been the same for everyone. The average gross wealth of the poorest 10% of households has fallen by an average of 2% a year, while [the average gross wealth] of the 10% of the richest households has increased by 4%.”
The impact of inheritance
Inheritance is the biggest source of inequality in France, Insee said.
“Three in 10 people have inherited during their lifetime; these households have almost twice as much gross wealth as households that have never inherited,” it said.
The average gross wealth of households that have inherited is almost twice that of those that have not (€442,000 compared with €238,000).
Inheritance also “accentuates” the inequalities caused by differing levels of property ownership, Insee said.
NGO Oxfam said in a report last year: “The richer you are [in France], the less you pay in inheritance tax.” At the time, it called for higher taxation of the country's largest estates (those in the top 0.1%).
In 2022 a report by several economists denounced what it called “dynasties of heirs”, with inheritance 180 times’ higher than the average.
It comes as inheritance tax has been on the agenda for MPs in France recently. As part of the 2025 budget review, a new amendment is expected to create a new tax bracket for inheritances of more than €3.6 million.
These are likely to be taxed at 49%, compared with the current maximum rate of 45%.
Read also: French inheritance tax: New proposals for step-children and direct descendants
Read also: Explained: 2024 inheritance tax for family members in France
The impact of property
Property is another source of inequality, Insee said.
“The rich in terms of income are also the rich in terms of wealth [particularly property wealth],” said Anne Brunner, co-director at the inequality research institute l’Observatoire des inégalités. According to the Observatoire, a richer person's wealth starts at €531,000, three times the median of the rest of the population.
The Observatoire states that 4.7 million people in France should be considered “rich", based on 2021 Insee data, even before this latest report was published.
This makes up 7.4% of the French population. To be rich, the Observatoire found that people must earn at least €3,860 per month after tax for a single person, €5,790 per month after tax for a couple, and €9,650 for a family with two children aged 14 or over.
Read also: What income makes you rich in France? Think tank sets 2024 figure
The rich are also more likely to own their own homes, the new report found. As a result, inequalities in wealth have increased over the last twenty years, mainly because of the property market and rising prices, Insee said.
The value of property owned by wealthier households has increased by 233% (or an average of 5.4% per year) due to the effects of rising prices, it added.
Access to credit
The top 70% of households benefited from the “favourable economic climate” and the low interest rates seen before 2022, Insee said.
However, between 2018 and 2020, 10% of households were unable to access credit as they would have liked. Either they were turned down, or they simply did not apply, even when interest rates were low and banks’ lending criteria was eased.
Wealth and age
Wealth increases up to around the age of 50, and then stabilises, the report found.
Wealth then decreases from age 75 for those living at home. However, people are also inheriting more and more at a later age, Insee said.
The poverty line
Those earning less than €1,216 a month (or €2,554 euros for a couple with two children under the age of 14) are poor as defined by Insee.
In 2022, this represented 14.4% of the French population, or 9.1 million people.
Insee notes that this proportion has increased significantly over the last 20 years: in 2004, the poverty rate was 12.4%.
