Why American Women Are Moving to France (It’s Not Just About Trump)
According to Gallup, 40% of American women between 15 and 44 say they would move to another country permanently if they had the chance.
A decade ago, that figure was 10%. That’s a fourfold increase in a single generation.
And when you ask these women where they’d go, France keeps coming up near the top of the list.
So what’s really driving this? Is it politics? Healthcare? A dream of café terraces and a slower pace of life? The honest answer is: all of the above.
The Gallup Numbers Are Hard to Ignore
Gallup has tracked emigration desire since 2008. Back then, 17% of younger American women said they’d like to live elsewhere – about the same as men. The gap between the two was essentially zero.
By 2025, that gap had blown wide open. Women: 40%. Men the same age: 19%.
What changed? Gallup traces the divergence to around 2017. Young women’s confidence in U.S. institutions – the military, the courts, elections – dropped 17 points between 2015 and 2025.
Men in the same age bracket? Down just one point.
People with lower institutional confidence, Gallup notes, are “consistently more likely to express a desire to leave the country.” The data lines up perfectly.
Is It Trump? Yes And No
That’s the question everyone asks first. The gender gap did start forming in 2017, during Trump’s first term.
And today, Americans who disapprove of the country’s leadership are 25 points more likely than those who approve to say they want to leave permanently.
So politics clearly plays a role. But immigration advisers and relocation experts say their clients almost never leave for a single reason.
The people actually making the move cite a longer list: reproductive rights, healthcare costs, safety, work-life balance, a feeling that the country is heading in the wrong direction.
France, specifically, addresses almost every item on that list.
France Keeps Coming Up
France isn’t just a romantic idea. It has concrete things to offer that directly respond to what American women say they’re looking for.
Reproductive rights are constitutionally protected. In 2024, France became the first country in the world to enshrine the right to abortion in its constitution.
It scores 85.2% on the 2025 European Abortion Policies Atlas – second in all of Europe, behind only Sweden.
For many American women who watched Roe v. Wade fall in 2022, that’s not a small thing.
Healthcare is universal and affordable. France consistently ranks among the world’s best healthcare systems.
The average cost of living in France runs about 9% lower than in the U.S., and healthcare, already covered by the national system, is a fraction of what Americans pay out of pocket.
Nearly 47% of Americans say they worry they won’t be able to afford necessary care in 2026. That number is almost unthinkable in France.
The pace of life is genuinely different. France has strict laws protecting vacation time, lunch breaks, and the right to disconnect from work after hours.
The average French worker gets a minimum of 5 weeks of paid leave per year. Work-life balance isn’t a buzzword there – it’s legally enforced.
France is already home to a large American community.
Nearly 153,000 adult Americans currently live in France, with roughly one in four based in Paris. There are established expat communities, English-speaking networks, and a well-worn path for making the move work practically.
The Move Is Really Happening
This isn’t just polling data. Americans are leaving in real numbers.
For the first time since the Great Depression, more people left the U.S. last year than moved in. Across nearly all 27 EU countries, arrivals from the U.S. are at record highs.
In Ireland, around 4,700 people residing in the U.S. applied for Irish citizenship based on ancestry in just the first quarter of 2025 – the highest quarterly figure in a decade.
Portugal has seen its American population rise more than 500% since the pandemic. France is seeing similar momentum.
What Moving to France Requires
Dreaming about it and doing it are two different things. France has real bureaucratic hurdles.
Most Americans start with a long-stay visa (visa de long séjour), which allows stays of more than 90 days. From there, you convert to a residence card.
You’ll need proof of sufficient income, at least around €1,400 per month, plus private health insurance and proof of accommodation.
The process takes patience. French bureaucracy moves slowly, paperwork is in French, and opening a bank account can be its own adventure. Most expats say the first six months are the hardest.
But the ones who stay? Most say they wouldn’t go back.
“The U.S. pays higher salaries, but Europe offers a better quality of life,” one American expat working remotely from France told the Wall Street Journal.