In France in 2018, a total of 1.9 million people were in extreme poverty and a further 170,000 likely to be. Out of those 1.9 million people in extreme poverty and living in ordinary housing, mobile homes or homeless, 35% are children, while 7% are aged 65 or over. 24% live in French overseas territories, including 10% in Mayotte and 14% in the other four overseas territories. In addition, 79,000 people living in old people’s nursing homes or some other health or social care establishment and 86,000 living in halls of residence or hostels are on a particularly low income and therefore likely to be in extreme poverty.

For people living in ordinary housing, extreme poverty is defined as the combination of low income and severe material and social deprivation. Their median standard of living is equivalent to 43% of that of the rest of the population. They suffer seven times more material and social deprivations than than non-poor people.

Twice as many adults in extreme poverty regard themselves as being in poor health compared with other adults and a third of them are restricted in their day-to-day life due to their health. Over a third of adults in extreme poverty are unemployed and one in five are not in employment, education or training and are not retired. However, a third are in employment, a large proportion of whom are blue-collar worker and part-time employees or working intermittently during the year.

Extreme poverty often persists over a long time. Only one in eight people in extreme poverty no longer suffers either monetary poverty or material and social deprivation three years later, five suffer one or other of these and two remain in extreme poverty.