From the survival of children...

In 1750, infectious and parasitic diseases killed one-third of all children in France before the age of ten. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, through the combined effects of improved medical hygiene and the successful control of infectious diseases thanks to vaccination and, more recently, antibiotics, infant mortality started to decline. The risk of death before age one decreased steadily, falling below ten per thousand births in 1981. Infant mortality no longer has an impact on life expectancy, and death in infancy is now a rare event. In 2009, the number of babies who died before age one was 3,7 per thousand births.

...to the survival of adults

By the mid twentieth century, the risk of dying from an infectious or parasitic disease had become very low, and the life expectancy of people aged over 60 - the main victims of these diseases alongside children - steadily increased. From the 1970s, progress in treating cancers and cardiovascular diseases and the development of preventive health policies further extended the average length of life. In 1917, a man aged 60 could expect to live for a further 12.7 years, and in 2009, for a further 22.2 years.