France is doing badly. In 2025, there were more deaths than births across the country, a first since the end of the Second World War, according to the latest demographic report from INSEE, published Tuesday January 13. The maternity wards are emptying, the cemeteries are filling up. The midwives are unemployed, the gravediggers are on the job. Babies are no longer popular. Soon, at this rate, schools will be recycled into retirement homes, high schools into geriatric institutes, universities into funeral homes.
A country that no longer gives birth is a country that is dying. As someone who doesn’t have children, I almost feel guilty. I wouldn’t want to have the death of France on my conscience, it’s already busy enough as it is. I failed in my duty as a citizen by refusing to allow my precious seed to be used to populate this country which saw me born and become one of its greatest unrecognized geniuses. Shame on me. Instead of giving life, I wrote novels as useful to the progress of society as rotten banana plantations.
A man procreates or he stays silent. I did neither. If only it was a matter of laziness or poorly equipped sperm, still okay, but not even that. It is in conscience that I made the serious decision that never, ever, I would participate in the perpetuation of the species. My sadism doesn’t go that far. In what mental state must we navigate to decide that life is worth living and we must ensure the renewal of generations?
Life being a series of infinite troubles, giving it away amounts to overwhelming an innocent being with a load a thousand times too heavy for his skinny shoulders to bear. Who will dare to claim that life is an enriching experience if not a few gullible people for whom hope is like second nature? Anyone who would think for two seconds about the human condition, its absurdity, its cruelty, its very theatrical end, if he had the courage of his thoughts, should immediately carry out a general vasectomy.
This is even more true today than yesterday. With global warming, the advent of artificial intelligence, the collapse of international law, the return of great imperialist empires, the shadow of future wars, the proliferation of social networks, the planned disappearance of culture, giving birth these days is akin to a suicide mission.
“Not only is life horrible, it’s also short”Woody Allen once wrote. This reflection should adorn all French bridal bedrooms.
Who would like to see the light of day in a world so full of obstacles and so few hopes? Being born today is guaranteed to die of heat while living in a world ruled by machines and robots. Great prospect! You might as well hang yourself from your umbilical cord, this will avoid future suffering and disillusionment.
If living has always been suffering, today it is accompanied by a total absence of ideal or consolation. Nothing to hold on to, nothing to hope for, nothing. Humanity is sinking into the great dark night of ignorance, disinformation, and all-out manipulation. And in this vast upheaval which is coming, it is difficult to see how the individual could find his account, except as an auxiliary of the machine, of robots quick to dictate the course of the world.
And as if that were not enough, the tech giants promise us that we will live long enough and in good health to play tennis with our great-great-great-grandchildren, a vision of horror which alone should popularize the practice of castration. If death is no longer even there to shorten our suffering, life quickly becomes a carnival of hell where we must wait for a deliverance that never arrives. Better to get married to your chatbot right away and pray that the end of times comes sooner than expected.
In short, even if I am still fit enough to become a father one day soon, don’t count on me to repopulate France. I have enough worries raising my cat and also burdening myself with raising a kid or two, a gaggle of ignoramuses who, instead of reading my books or discussing with me the pessimism in Schopenhauer’s work, would prefer to talk with a robot on steroids.
“Not only is life horrible, it’s also short”New York filmmaker Woody Allen once wrote. This reflection should adorn all French bridal bedrooms. Let it be said, the elderly are the future of humanity.
