By chance, the first house that we rented in France while looking for a place to buy was located only a 2-minute walk from a large, grassy area and a long pathway along the river. While Bill and I certainly enjoyed those recreational opportunities, they were vitally important to the third member of our family who came with us from the US—our dog. Once we had agreed that this country would be our chosen retirement spot, we began to narrow down the city possibilities, first by specifying “no snow, nor icy winters”. In addition to going through our checklist of what we wanted in a new place, we started researching surveys that often included “Best” in their titles. An obvious topic was “for retirement” but there were others like, “for safety, for leisure activities, for healthcare” and the all encompassing, “for quality of life”. Now we see that an animal-friendly association has created a listing specifically for pets.
The Foundation 30 Millions d’Amis concentrates on animal protection in France with public awareness campaigns, legal action, and workshops. They publish an annual ranking of cities with a population of more than 100,000 called, “Where It’s Good to Live with Animals”. The most recent winner was Grenoble, in the Alps, that got a perfect score for accessibility. The city has eight parks (featured in today’s cover and first paragraph photos) with a total of 10 hectares (25 acres) where dogs can go off-leash and they can even ride the town’s buses and trams for free. To top that off, city hall employees are allowed to bring their dogs to work with them.
Rankings were based on factors that included:
- The amount of green space available for animals
- Public transportation for pets and their humans
- Cleanliness of parks and sidewalks
- Measures taken by the city to improve animal welfare
- Efforts taken to house homeless animals
I’ll put a pdf of the results of all 42 cities with the criteria used at the end of this post. As a preview, here are the top 5 cities:
- Grenoble
- Boulogne-Billancourt (just outside of Paris)
- Lille
- Nice
- Amiens
Boulogne-Billancourt rose to their high position because of the city’s efforts to find homes for stray animals while Lille is opening a care facility for wild animals. For 30 Millions d’Amis the real indication of success, however, is that 58% of French people now consider animal welfare to be an important issue that their local government should champion.
If you’re trying to decide on where to live in France, you can click on the tag “Where to live in France” over in the right-hand column to see some of our blog posts about the topic. And now, if you’re bringing a four-footed friend with you, or plan to adopt a cuddly buddy once you arrive, you have one more source to help you make a decision.
Results for “Where It’s Good to Live with Animals” pdf
