Suicide: Men three times more affected than women

Study after study, warnings are multiplying about the mental health of young people, with the rise in hospitalizations and emergency room visits for suicide attempts in recent years, particularly among young girls, as an indicator. To the point of sometimes forgetting another trend: the number of people who die after a suicide attempt has remained relatively stable since 2020, after a steady decline since the mid-1980s.

In 2022, 9,200 people took their own lives in France, bringing the crude rate to 13.4 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants – compared to 13 in 2021 and 13.1 in 2020, according to the latest figures published by the National Suicide Observatory , in February 2025. The decline, which continued for thirty-five years, seems to be "running out of steam" , notes the Observatory, which hypothesizes a "floor level" reached at the turn of the 2020s (apart from a rebound in 2018, linked to a statistical artifact, largely due to an improvement in data collection).

The main trends remain the same: men (6,925) are three times more affected than women (2,275), the Observatory recalls, with a rate, per 100,000, of 20.8 against 6.4 respectively. Although the focus since the health crisis has been on adolescents, suicide rates increase with age, ranging from 2.7 per 100,000 among those under 25 to more than 35 per 100,000 among those aged 85 or over.

You have 63.81% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.