In France, all university cities are attractive!

For 15 years, the magazine and website L’Etudiant has been publishing a general ranking of French university cities. This ranking is one of the benchmarks of university cities, and it doesn’t show much surprises. Major student cities (excluding Paris and its region) win the best places. The preferred cities of students are implemented all over France, and are all significant study and research centres. In total 43 French cities of small, medium or big size were analysed using five criteria: training course, attractiveness, employment, quality of life and student life. 

Metropoles take over the top of the ranking

In this year’s Top 10, the metropoles (city working in intercommunality with the surrounding smaller cities) of Toulouse, Lyon and Rennes (ex-aequo) share the three first steps of the podium. They are followed by Strasbourg, Montpellier, Nantes, Grenoble, Bordeaux, Paris, and Aix-Marseille.

This year, again, the most attractive cities are cities with at least 200,000 inhabitants and 40,000 students (except Grenoble). An L’Etudiant declared that “metropoles continue to rule over the ranking, even though big cities are pushing forward”. For L'Etudiant, even though “cities continue to attract many students, and particularly international students”, it is “thanks to their cultural influence or the dynamism of the activities on offer”. However, the site continues, medium-sized cities and large hubs “also have a lot to offer: their rents are more affordable, the density of study courses on offer is good, and their L2 pass rates are among the best in France”. 

Three rankings by type of university city

This is why L’Etudiant chose to publish three additional types of ranking this year, comparing only cities of the same size, i.e. metropoles, large cities and medium-sized cities.

In the metropolises, Toulouse, Lyon and Rennes are the big winners, as in the general ranking, and the rest is fairly similar.

But if we look at the table of “large student cities”, those with less than 20,000 students, we find the city of Poitiers in the top ten, followed by the cities of Caen, Dijon, Saint-Etienne, Orléans, Brest, Tours, Besançon, Limoges and Reims.

Finally, in the category of “medium-sized cities”, the Top 10 is again different: the city of Pau leads the ranking, followed by Chambéry, La Rochelle, Le Mans, Mulhouse, Arras, Nîmes, Toulon, Le Havre and Valenciennes.

Everything changes in the student ranking

To complete these four rankings, L’Etudiant asked students via a survey on social networks to participate in a questionnaire designed to elect the “favourite student city”. The magazine chose ten criteria, from accommodation to the general atmosphere of the city, including cultural and sporting life and the environment. But in the end, the question is simple: would you recommend this city to another student? And then everything changes! The city of Strasbourg wins the heart of students over, with a 98.98% recommendation rate.  With a slightly lower rate (about 97.5%) are La Rochelle, Lille, Rennes, Toulouse, Lyon, Clermont-Ferrand, Caen, Angers and Dijon.

Campus France offers 50 city factsheets to help you make up your own mind

Among these rankings showing that all French cities are attractive, the only thing left to do is to check out the Campus France City Factsheets to make up your own mind!

Check out the factsheet of your study city in France

Primarily intended for international students, these information sheets were first published in 2015. Since then, they have been regularly updated and constantly enriched. Each sheet lists the services and provides the practical information that an international student needs to organise his or her arrival and carry out administrative procedures once in France. They also provide information on cultural, sporting and community activities in the chosen city. They are available in French, English and Spanish, and cover fifty university cities, including overseas.