How many Muslims live in France? The most recent and reliable estimate is that approximately 7% of people aged 15 and over living in mainland France identify as Muslim. This figure comes from a large-scale survey conducted by Ifop in 2025 among 14,244 respondents. Another major study, carried out a few years earlier by France’s national statistics institute (Insee) and the National Institute for Demographic Studies (Ined), produced a higher figure: 10% among people aged 18 to 59.
France does not classify its population by religion in its national census. A question about religious affiliation was included in the census until 1872, when it was discontinued, although it remained in use in Alsace under the Concordat system until 1962. This does not mean that collecting statistics on religious affiliation is prohibited.
As Insee explains, information about religious beliefs is considered sensitive personal data, but it may be collected for statistical or scientific purposes within an appropriate legal framework. Large-scale surveys can therefore estimate the Muslim population, although they cannot provide an individual count.
The most recent estimate comes from an Ifop study conducted in 2025. The polling institute surveyed 14,244 people aged 15 and over living in mainland France. When asked which religion they belonged to, if any, 6.9% identified as Muslim, a figure generally rounded to 7%.
Catholicism accounted for 43% of respondents, Protestantism or Evangelical Christianity for 4%, Orthodox Christianity for 1%, Judaism for 1%, and Buddhism for 1%. Meanwhile, 37.5% reported having no religion.
The 6.9% figure has an important advantage: it measures people who identify themselves as Muslim. Ifop does not classify individuals as Muslim simply because their parents are Muslim, because they were born in a Muslim-majority country, or on the basis of their name or ethnic background. The survey therefore measures self-declared religious affiliation rather than an assumed population of “Muslim origin.”
What does 6.9% represent in terms of actual population numbers? On January 1, 2026, mainland France had approximately 66.8 million inhabitants, of whom around 10.7 million were under the age of 15. This leaves approximately 56.1 million people aged 15 or over. Applying the 6.9% proportion measured by Ifop in 2025 to this population produces an estimate of approximately 3.9 million Muslims aged 15 and over in mainland France.
However, this figure of 3.9 million must be understood for what it is: an estimate obtained by applying survey findings to the population, not an administrative count. It excludes children under 15 and does not include France’s overseas departments and territories. It should therefore not be presented as the total number of Muslims in France.
The total number of people of all ages who identify as Muslim is necessarily higher, but the available data do not allow an equally reliable and precise estimate of that total.
Another frequently cited estimate comes from the Trajectories and Origins 2 survey, conducted in 2019 and 2020 by Insee and Ined among more than 27,000 respondents. That study found that 10% of people aged 18 to 59 living in mainland France identified as Muslim. Islam was therefore the second-largest declared religion after Catholicism, which accounted for 29% of the population in that age group.
Why did the Insee-Ined survey find 10%, while Ifop reported 6.9%?
The main difference lies in the populations surveyed. The Trajectories and Origins study excludes people aged 60 and over. Ifop, by contrast, includes people in their sixties, seventies, eighties and beyond—generations in which Muslim affiliation is considerably less common and identification with Catholicism is more widespread.
The Muslim population is, on average, significantly younger than the French population as a whole.
In Ifop’s 2025 survey, nearly one-third of Muslim respondents were between 15 and 24 years old, even though this age group represented only about 14% of the overall population surveyed.
The two studies therefore do not measure exactly the same population.
Nevertheless, successive surveys make it possible to observe an increase in identification with Islam. Ifop estimates that the proportion of Muslims among people aged 15 and over in mainland France rose from 4.2% in 2009 to 5.6% in 2016 and 6.9% in 2025.
The Insee-Ined study also shows that Muslim religious affiliation is strongly transmitted between generations. Among respondents raised in Muslim families, 91% still identify as Muslim. This rate of transmission is higher than among those raised in Catholic families, of whom 67% retain their Catholic affiliation.
The religious demographics of France are therefore shaped by several factors: migration, age structure, the transmission of religion within families, and the process through which individuals cease to identify with a religion.
Identifying as Muslim does not necessarily imply the same level of religious practice among all individuals. According to Insee-Ined, approximately 20% of Muslims report regularly attending a place of worship, meaning at least once a month.
Mosque attendance alone, however, does not fully measure religiosity. Personal religious practices, prayer, fasting, and the importance attached to religion may be considerably more widespread than attendance at communal worship.
In the same survey, 76% of Muslims said that religion played a very or fairly important role in their lives.
Statistics about Islam must also be distinguished from estimates concerning people described as being “of Muslim origin.” Someone whose parents are Muslim may no longer consider themselves Muslim. Conversely, someone may convert to Islam without having any Muslim family background.
The latest Ifop survey deliberately uses religious self-identification as its criterion. In this study, a person is counted as Muslim when they themselves declare that Islam is their religion.
The most reliable answer available in 2026 is therefore that 6.9% of people aged 15 and over living in mainland France identify as Muslim, corresponding to approximately 3.9 million people when that proportion is applied to the current population in this age group.
However, this estimate excludes children under 15 and residents of overseas France, and it is not based on a census. For people aged 18 to 59, the major Insee-Ined study gives a significantly higher proportion of 10%.
These differences demonstrate why no statistic concerning religion in France should be quoted without specifying its source, the date of the study, and the population it covers.
For a broader picture of the country’s religious landscape, see our overview of Religion in France: Statistics and Trends in 2026.