Angers and Le Mans: the two least stressful cities in France

If you want to be less stressed, our region is definitely the place to set up! In a recent survey published by the newspaper Le Figaro, Angers was voted the least stressful city in France, just ahead of Le Mans, while Nantes (9th) is one of the only cities with more than 300,000 inhabitants to feature in this Top 10.

If you still have doubts about the sweetness of life in Angers or more generally the quality of life offered by the cities of Atlantic France, the rankings, which were established by Le Figaro and based on very specific criteria, will persuade you otherwise.

The 20 largest cities in France have been scrutinised for various reasons, including:

• Street noise
• Traffic jams
• Commuting time / location of workplace
• Population density
• The online activity of residents on the issue of stress management
• The amount of sunshine 

This study meant that points could be assigned to each criterion before arriving at a weighted average scored out of 20.

Live well and work well in Atlantic France

Angers achieved an excellent overall score of 14.69 out of 20, narrowly snatching first place from its Sarthe neighbour, the city of Le Mans (14.56). Reims completes this podium. The remarkable presence of Nantes in the Top 10 should be noted as well. The capital of Atlantic France – which came in 9th place – is one of the only major French cities with more than 300,000 inhabitants (alongside Nice) to appear in the top 10 places in this ranking.

Angers is hailed today for its soothing ambience, and its zen and relaxing living environment; conditions conducive to a better quality of working life (QWL). The two criteria that have particularly played in favour of the city of Angers are exposure to road noise (only 3.46% of the population is overexposed – more than 68 dB – compared to 13.4% for Paris); and traffic (an Angevin only spends a little more than a day in traffic jams a year – 27 hours – while a Parisian spends nearly six days in them – 140 hours).