At the height of the Covid-19 virus epidemic in France, during the months of March and April, the year-on-year increase in deaths was more than twice as high among those born abroad than those born in France, according to data released by the French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE).
French law imposes strict limitations on the gathering and publication of statistics concerning ethnicity. But the criteria used by INSEE – place of birth – provides a broad, if inevitably imprecise, indication of how the coronavirus has proportionally most affected ethnic minorities, as has also been observed in other countries, including Britain and the US where more precise data is published regarding ethnic groups.
One caveat of course is that the category of people “born in France” will also include children of people born outside the country. Nevertheless, the INSEE data clearly illustrates a disproportionate number of deaths among those born outside France, and notably Africa and Asia.
Deaths from all causes among the total French population during the period of March and April this year was 25% higher than the same period in 2019, totalling 129,000 this year compared with 102,800 in 2019, detailed INSEE in its report published on July 7th (in French, here). Deaths in March and April this year among people born in France rose by 22%, while among those born abroad the rise was 48%.
INSEE is unable to detail precisely how many of these deaths were from Covid-19 infection, but no other phenomenon can explain the massive rise in mortality. The total number of officially recorded deaths in France from Covid-19 infection between March 2nd, when the first fatalities were registered, up until Saturday July 11th, was 30,004 (although it is speculated that early inadequate testing may hide many more).
INSEE found the biggest increase of deaths among foreign-born people concerned those from Africa; there was a year-on-year rise of 114% among those from the continent’s sub-Saharan countries, and a 54% rise of those from the Maghreb countries (essentially Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia) of north-west Africa. Among people born on the Asian continent, the rise was 91%.
The Seine-Saint-Denis département (equivalent to a county) that borders north-east Paris is one of the poorest in France, emblematic of social inequalities between regions and with a relatively high proportion of people from ethnic minorities. The year-on-year rise in deaths among the total population in Seine-Saint-Denis in March and April was 127%, compared to a nationwide average of 25% for the same period.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
The rise in deaths in Seine-Saint-Denis among those born in countries of sub-Saharan Africa was 368%, while among those born in the Maghreb countries it was 191%. Deaths among people born in France in the suburb rose by 95%.
Across France, “the rise in the number of deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic was clearly greater in the most densely populated areas, this being the case for people born abroad like [also] for those born in France,” reported INSEE, underlining that while 35% of the French population born in France reside in the most densely inhabited municipalities, that figure rises to 70% for those born in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, and 65% for those born in the Maghreb countries.
Similarly, the year-on-year rise in deaths in the most densely populated areas during March and April was 39% for those born in France, 158% among people born in sub-Saharan Africa, and 76% for those born in the Maghreb countries.
In an attempt to explain the striking gap in the rates of increased mortality during the period between those born in France and others, INSEE took into consideration data collected in a 2016 census, which included details such as professions, gender, the size of homes and the use of public transport, all of which it said were factors that “no doubt played a role” in the increases in deaths. “For example,” noted the report, “people born in Africa outside of the Maghreb, and to a lesser degree those born in the Maghreb, have the most cramped accommodation (respectively, 1.3 rooms per occupant and 1.6, compared to 1.8 for all inhabitants), and are those who usually use public transport the most to travel to work (respectively 49% and 28% in 2016, compared to 15% [of the overall population]).”
It also underlined that “people born in Africa are the most exposed to the risk of contamination due to their work”, and that a higher proportion of Africa-born people make up the “key professions” who continued to work in essential services during the lockdown on public movement, like healthworkers, cleaners and refuse collectors, shopworkers and goods deliverers, and who were thus more exposed to potential contact with the virus. All the categories of “key workers”, in which INSEE also included high-street chemists, the police and fire brigade, include 15% of all inhabitants born in sub-Saharan Africa, and 14 % of those born in countries of the Mahgreb, as opposed to 11% of the total population born in France.
But the authors of the report underlined that they were unable to include other possible explanatory factors for the difference in the increased mortality rates, notably health conditions and access to healthcare.
The two regions worst-hit by far by the Covid-19 epidemic in France are firstly the greater Paris region, the Île-de-France (which includes the capital), and secondly the north-east “Grand Est” region. INSEE found that the divide in mortality rates between those born in France and those born elsewhere was highest in the Grand Est region where, it reported, “the rise in deaths in March-April 2020 compared to March-April 2019 reached 120% for people born in the Maghreb and 121% for all of those born in [sub-Saharan] Africa and in Asia, compared to 52% for those born in France, a more important gap than in the Île-de-France”.
The report found that the proportion of men in the year-on-year increased mortality rate for the period of March and April was markedly higher among those born outside France than those born in the country, even though the ratio of men to women in the two groups is, it said, largely similar. For people born in France, the increase in deaths was almost identical for both genders, with a 26% increase in deaths among men and a 25% increase among women. However, among people born in the Maghreb, the increase was 61% among men and 44% among women, while for people born elsewhere in Africa the rise was 131% for men and 88% among women, and for those born in Asia the increase was 101% for men and 79% among women.
Finally, INSEE reports that of the total year-on-year increase of 26,200 deaths in France during March and April, 25,100 were those of people aged 65 or more. But while the rise in deaths of under-65s among people born in France rose by 3%, the increased deaths among under-65s “was about 30 times greater” among those born in sub-Saharan Africa and in Asia and “ten times greater for those born in the Maghreb”.
The disparity between population groups is far less evident for victims aged above 65, INSEE said, although the rise in mortality still remained higher in that category for those born outside France.
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- The original French version of this report can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse