No. In France birth rate is sustained by immigration, and its higher fertility rate. The birth rate of the native population is well below replacement rate. So technically there is population growth, but it's not the same as before. I highly doubt Japanese are willing to go this route.
Indeed. Paying for babies works very poorly in practice.
>France spent heavily on family policies (see chart 3). Since the turn of the millennium it has disbursed 3.5-4% of GDP a year on a mixture of handouts, services and tax breaks, meaning it has the highest pro-natalist spend in the OECD club of mostly rich countries. But in 2022 fewer children were born in the country than at any point since the second world war.
>[...] In France each extra child over the past decade has cost [$2 million].
