It's almost a "bebe" boom: France had more babies in 2006 than in any year in the last quarter-century, capping a decade of rising fertility that has bucked Europe's graying trend, the state statistics agency said Tuesday.

The government trumpeted the figures as a victory for family-friendly policies such as cheap day care and generous parental leave - many of which were launched under Socialists like presidential candidate Segolene Royal, who was family minister in the early 1990s, and have continued to grow under today's conservative government.

Charpin noted that the fertility rate among France's immigrant population was slightly higher than among the population at large, but said the difference was minimal.

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[We need more inhumane labour hours, TV, and bureaucracy to compensate this dreadful progress.]