#WEALTH & ESTATE PLANNING
We like to believe we build our wealth through work and saving. In France, most wealth no longer comes from there: it comes from family.
Published on August 21, 2026
According to Note No. 69 from France's Conseil d'analyse économique (CAE), 'Repenser l'héritage' (Dherbécourt, Fack, Landais, Stantcheva, December 2021), inherited wealth, including both bequests and lifetime gifts, now accounts for 60% of total wealth held by French households, up from 35% on average in the early 1970s. This return of inheritance comes alongside a rise in the annual transmission flow itself: wealth transfers represented barely 5% of national income in 1950, versus more than 15% today. This trend, documented since the 1970s through the long-run series built by Thomas Piketty and coauthors, is confirmed by the leading international reference on the topic, Alvaredo, Garbinti & Piketty ('On the Share of Inheritance in Aggregate Wealth: Europe and the USA, 1900-2010,' Economica, 2017), which likewise places the return of inheritance at 50-60% of aggregate wealth since around 2010, after a low of 30-40% between 1950 and 1980.
If inheritance now weighs twice as much as fifty years ago, what does that mean for someone relying solely on their own savings?
Building wealth comparable to an heir's, through work and saving alone, becomes statistically harder: most of the wealth accumulated in the country no longer comes from that path.
In other words: in fifty years, inheritance has overtaken personal saving as the main driver of wealth accumulation in France.
Three caveats, because they matter
- The figure includes lifetime gifts, which now account for nearly half of all transfers versus about 10% around 1900: inheritance has changed in form, not just in scale.
- The average age of heirs has risen from about 30 in the early 20th century to about 50 today: inheriting increasingly funds retirement rather than a start in working life.
- The rise hasn't been linear since 1970: the annual transmission flow (the share of national income transferred each year) mostly accelerated recently, from 5% in 1950 to over 15% today.
Why it still matters: someone's wealth trajectory increasingly depends on their family, and less on work alone, an inequality driver that labor-income policy alone doesn't fix.
For you
- Does your current wealth owe more to your own saving or to a family transfer, even a partial one?
- If inheritance weighs twice as much as fifty years ago, has the tax applied to it kept pace?
Source: Conseil d'analyse économique, Note No. 69 'Repenser l'héritage' (Dherbécourt, Fack, Landais, Stantcheva, December 2021); Alvaredo, Garbinti & Piketty, 'On the Share of Inheritance in Aggregate Wealth: Europe and the USA, 1900-2010,' Economica, 2017.
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