Ville de R锚ve is the latest in a long line of initiatives that sets out to rank the .
Published annually for the last four years, it bases its conclusions on science and statistics drawn from more than 130 open-datasets.
鈥淭he strength of Ville de R锚ve is its transparency,鈥� said the scheme鈥檚 director, J茅r么me Devouge.
鈥淭he rankings are very unbiased; users know how the scores are calculated.鈥�
鈥楥ities ranked according to your needs,鈥� claims the website鈥檚 homepage. And, indeed, users can pick various filters, criteria and 12 鈥榙etail鈥� categories to tailor their search for France's best location to their own tastes or requirements.
In 2025, Ville de R锚ve crowned Annecy in the 鈥榖est city and mid-sized town鈥� category with an average score of 84.7 out of 100. The city is ranked 47th overall.
That is because many small towns and villages are graded above 85. Gu茅rande, a town of 16,000-plus inhabitants of Loire-Atlantique, scored 89.7.
It ranks second, outperformed only by Kaysersberg Vignoble, a town of 4,401 inhabitants in Haut-Rhin, which scored 90.
鈥淭here is always a rational aspect when it comes to choosing an area to live. On the other hand, the 鈥渃oup de coeur鈥� dimension, history, family and childhood memories are important parameters that can't be measured,鈥� said Mr Devouge.鈥�
The fourth edition of your ranking was mentioned more than 100 times in local newspapers. How do you explain its success?
Part of it lies in Ville de R锚ve鈥檚 transparency on data usage. I would say the ranking is very unbiased; users know how it is calculated. How each variable is weighted remains the only subjective element, because that is personal judgment.鈥�
Ville de R锚ve came from a desire 鈥� with your wife 鈥� to leave Paris following the Covid pandemic. Four years later, where did you settle?
We moved to Annecy, which ranked first on our 2025 edition, funnily enough. My wife and I had some criteria in common; a big or middle-sized city with a pleasurable environment. My wife looked for coastal towns while I wanted to move closer to the mountains.
When listing the cities and towns that matched, there were too many. This is how the idea came about.鈥˙ut there was also a subjective dimension in our choice. We moved there because our family already lived in Haute-Savoie. This is something Ville de R锚ve cannot take into account.鈥�
Two years ago, more people were leaving Paris than ever before. Has the trend changed?
It is still ongoing within the borders of Paris, the 辫茅谤颈辫丑茅谤颈辩耻别, but it is plateauing in nearby suburbs. The reason lies in how expensive it is to find affordable housing. However, there is still a growing interest in big cities such as Bordeaux, Toulouse or Marseille.鈥�
If culture is the most important factor at play, then Paris remains unrivalled. It is ranked 100 in this category. However, it scored 2 in the cost-of-living category. You can sum up the city with these two categories. The trend has been ongoing for 10 years. Covid only amplified it.鈥�
How can our readers personalise the website?
The ranking is, to my knowledge, the only that can be 100% customised. There are regions favoured by expats. One of our functions allows users to filter rankings and concentrate on departments or around certain towns.
Secondly, they can play around with scores and the weight of points by selecting categories they like, such as the number of doctors and practitioners in the region. Ville de R锚ve has one the most comprehensive scores in the health category, for instance. The heritage filter can also help in identifying beautiful villages.鈥�
Among your 130+ sources and datasets, did you manage to get hold of the number of Britons or Americans living in France?
That's too precise. Our data is very localised, on a communal or inter-communal scale. Although we have data from Insee on the number of foreigners in each commune, and we use it, it is not for this classification. It's also sensitive data.
Almost all our data is public. We've worked a lot with certain Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and Google data to find, for example, data on traffic jams. We'll soon have data on sunshine levels in French cities.
Have you considered adding a 鈥楧iversity鈥� category to reflect on the number of foreign residents in a given location?
It remains a sensitive topic. Where do you draw the line between a good and a bad number of foreign residents? What, in terms of percentage of the total population, should that number be 鈥� 10, 15 or 20%? I am not the person to decide.鈥�
What about taking the national average of 10.2% from [statistics agency] Insee?鈥�
Okay, but is it 鈥榞ood鈥�? Is it enough? Or too much?
There are figures, on the other hand, that can be situated on a good/bad axis. Climate resilience and insecurity are two of them, for instance. The more there are sweltering nights per year in a town, the greater the drought and the lower the score. The greater the insecurity, the lower the score as well.
However, we did use this data to help determine another ranking 鈥� the 鈥榤ost typical鈥� city in France.
How should that term, 鈥榤ost typical鈥�, be understood by our readers?鈥�
It simply takes the average of many datasets such as unemployment rate, crime, percentage of properties owned, price per square metre and, as discussed, the number of foreign individuals. That city was Clermont-Ferrand.鈥�
What makes a dream town, according to your research?
A ville de r锚ve, nowadays, is one with strong advantages and no real downsides. Looking at the top 50, there are places with very good ratings on several categories that are not offset by weak grades, such as with Paris and its cost of living.
Being strong or average on a majority of categories but with several strong holds is sometimes enough to trump cities with good categories but two or three extremely low-rated ones.
These are places with a liveable environment, close to nature with a good 鈥榗limactic resilience鈥� index, meaning they are not affected by droughts or water restrictions such as in southern France.鈥�
What observations of the country have you drawn over four editions?
I've observed that there are villages or towns with fewer than 15,000 inhabitants that deserve to be better known, and when we look at the attractiveness score 鈥� the number of people who have recently moved there 鈥� some have a low attractiveness score but are rated very highly. The point of the ranking is to unearth these hidden gems.
The top 12 villages, for instance, are all in either Brittany or in mid-level mountain areas in the Alps, Pyr茅n茅es and Jura. This shows something about what 麻豆传媒映画 look for I would say.
鈥淔rance is an open-air museum,鈥� said radio host and TV presenter St茅phane Bern in 2013. Do you agree?
There are a lot of towns with outstanding heritage sites. However, there is still a lot of missing data here. We are much stronger when listing museums.
Aren't you trying, through your scientific approach, to rationalise something that can鈥檛 be rationalised 鈥� that idealised image of France and its small town life? Aren't you afraid of either killing, displacing or amplifying this?
There is always a rational aspect when it comes to choosing an area to live. On the other hand, the 鈥�coup de coeur鈥� dimension, history, family and childhood memories are important parameters that can't be measured.
My grandmother comes from Quarr茅-les-Tombes, a small village in Burgundy. In itself, it's not the most beautiful in the region. Yet I go there on vacation, because it's a family place.
There's an analytical side to this classification. But you can't replace the emotional, historical and personal side that has to be part of the choice. That's why we've included the 鈥榥earby鈥� filter, to allow you to be 鈥榥ot far from鈥�.
