ABSTRACT
A key element in the post-war modernization of French society was the shift in the balance between the city and the country. People had begun to leave the land in the nineteenth century, during the first period of industrialization, and by the early twentieth century the urban population had become as large as the rural population. However, the post-war ‘rural exodus’ was different in terms both of the number of people involved, of the speed with which it took place and of the effect on the age structure of the rural population. In the space of twenty years France became a primarily urban society and by the end of the twentieth century 80 per cent of its population was living in towns. Most of the migrants were young people and women and, as a result of these migrations, there was a transformation of life in both the countryside and the towns, as well as of the relationship between the two.
