RITAIN’S

population is on the brink of overtaking that of France, European Union figures showed yesterday.

Numbers for both countries were estimated at 65.8million for the UK and 67 million for France in January.

The figure for Britain, which currently has the third-highest population in the bloc, rose by more than 400,000 in a year according to Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency.

Previous long-term projections suggested that the population in Britain would outnumber that of France in 2030, but population numbers in the UK are rising so fast that this may come earlier.