How jobs drew more French HERE

THERE are now more French people living in Britain than Britons who live in France, an official analysis found yesterday.

A French invasion of young professionals drawn by career opportunities means French citizens in this country now outnumber those who go the other way – typically older and retired people heading for leisured lives in the south of France.

The breakdown by the Office for National Statistics said there were 165,000 French citizens in Britain in 2015, more than half of them aged under 45, and more than three out of four working, mostly in high-level professional jobs.

In exchange Britain has sent a flood of pensioners the other way. There were just under 150,000 British citizens in France in 2015, and nearly 67,000 people claiming a British state pension, a number that has more than trebled since the early 2000s.

Only just over 10,000 – mainly younger – Britons live in or near Paris, and more than a quarter of all the British inhab- itants of France live in the south west of the country.

The ONS report on migration between Britain and France said: ‘French residents living in the UK outnumber their British counterparts in France for those aged 15 to 44 years, while British residents living in France aged 60 and over outnumber the older French residents living in the UK.’

Movement to Britain has grown since the 1990s, fuelled by the draw of work as the French economy began to stagnate.