123,500 divorces in 2014 – A slight fall in divorces since 2010

123,500 divorces were pronounced in 2014, compared to 134,000 in 2010. After peaking in 2005, the number of divorces remained relatively stable until 2010. Since then, the trend has been downward. This recent decline in divorces is due mainly to a slight decrease in the propensity to divorce and to a very small extent to a drop in the number of marriages. Having risen steadily since the 1970s, the propensity to divorce was down slightly from the end of the 2000s. While the conditions for divorce remained the same in 2014, 44% of marriages during the year ended in divorce. Furthermore, today as since the 1970s, the risk of divorce is highest after five years of marriage. In 2014, a quarter of marriages were remarriages for at least one of the two partners and one marriage in ten was for both spouses. The age of remarriage had increased since 1980. In 2014, men who married that year and who had previously divorced were aged 50 on average, women were aged 46. With nearly 2 divorces per 1,000 inhabitants, France was in line with the European average in 2013.