French up sticks to sunny south

THE TWO Corsican port towns of Ajaccio and Bastia have been crowned the best places to live in France in a new study.

Researchers at Paris-Dauphine university examined official census data for the 100 biggest French towns and cities since 1999 and compared the figures against other factors, including sunlight hours, mean temperature, school and university performance and the number of new business start-ups.

The worst performing towns were all in the north-east. Charleville-Mézières in the Ardennes came bottom, losing 8.8% of its population, followed by Dunkirk, Mauberge, Le Havre and Montbéliard, which have all suffered from industrial decline.

The biggest population growth was in Ajaccio, up almost 20% since 1999, followed by Bastia, Arcachon, Sète and Fréjus.