Update April 2019

It had been a few months since we hadn’t any updates on Remote France ! This is now solved. I updated the rents, and added a new criteria : air quality. I also expanded the ranking to the 50 best French cities, up from 25 cities.

Air Quality

The “weather” criteria is less and less about wheather, and more and more about the quality of the environment, in a broad sense, of the city. It is not only an indication of how mild the climate is, but also how beautiful the landscapes are (we take into account the presence of mountains and of the sea), and, now, how polluted or clean the air is in that city.

The data comes from institutes all around France who publish a reglemented air quality index : “IQA” form small cities, and “ATMO” for cities largest than 100,000 inhabitants.

The index has several levels :

• Very Good: 1 to 2
• Good: 3 to 4
• Average: 5
• Mediocre: 6 to 7
• Bad: 8 to 9
• Very Bad: 10

In large french cities, this index is usually slightely above 4, on average. Some cities such as Marseille and Nice have an average above 4.5, and, at the other end of the spectrum, Nantes, Angers and Rennes have an average below 4. It seems that the air is fresher in the West than in the South!

Expanded ranking: ranks 26-50

I am often asked how this or that city fares against the ones in my ranking. To answer in anticipation, I expanded the ranking to the top 50 french cities. As it is a first time in the ranking for a lot of those cities (well, half of them!), there might still be some data quality issues. Please do not hesitate to get in touch to let me know of any inconsistency you may notice!

Hector, 2019-04-22