Lyon tops poll of France’s cities

LYON is France’s most attractive city, followed by Paris and Toulouse, according to a survey that assessed 15 cities on criteria including overall quality of life, employment and culture.

Winning city Lyon scored consistently high across all assessed criterion including general standard of living, the economy and healthcare.

Although the capital scored highest on economic criteria such as finding work and doing business, it lagged far behind Lyon for quality of life – coming sixth in this category. And Paris scored worst for setting up a business, perhaps reflecting the increased level of competition, with Montpellier topping the list for start-up firms.

Some results from the PwC Global report were surprising – Nice, long regarded as a desirable location by holidaymakers and retired people, scored second worst for overall quality of life, ahead of only Brest.

Bordeaux came first in this category, benefiting from its high scores for sanitation, the environment and urban infrastructure.

But Bordeaux scored seventh in the Potential et Connexion au Monde category, which measures things such as intellectual capital and how connected a city is to the outside world. Paris came first, followed by Lyon and Toulouse.

Other cities that fell outside the top 10 for overall standard of living were Montpellier, Marseille and Rouen. The best places after Paris and Lyon to live in according to economic criteria were Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nantes.
Photo: Chris 73 - CC BY-SA 3.0