Paris ? It’s almost a “bebe” boom: France had more babies in 2006 than in any year in the last quarter-century, the state statistics agency said Tuesday, capping a decade of rising fertility that has bucked Europe’s graying trend.

The government trumpeted the figures as a victory for family-friendly policies such as cheap day care and generous parental leave – many of which were launched under Socialists like Segolene Royal, the presidential candidate who was family minister in the early 1990s, and have continued to grow under today’s conservative government.

France had 830,000 new babies last year, the highest annual total since 1981, the Insee statistics agency said.

The fertility rate was 2.0 children per woman, up from 1.92 in 2005.

France’s fertility rate has been climbing steadily since 1996, but it still has not passed 2.1 – considered what it takes to replace a population in developed countries. The rate in the United States is 2.1.