There is still more work to do. While cycling is often presented as one of the solutions to reduce transport-related pollution, France does not feature in the top 10 most bike-friendly cities in the world.

This ranking, discovered by France Inter, was made by the French online insurer Luko and takes into account many criteria. The 90 cities are thus evaluated based on the weather, the percentage of bicycle users, the quality of the infrastructure, safety (number of accidents and thefts), the provision of shared bicycles or the organization of events such as the day without cars .

On the podium we find Utrecht (The Netherlands) in first place, followed by Münster (Germany) and Antwerp (Belgium). In the rest of the top 10, cities accustomed to this type of ranking, such as the Danish capital Copenhagen or that of the Netherlands, Amsterdam, respectively fourth and fifth. But also the Chinese city of Hangzhou, the only non-European city in the top 10.

The first two French cities, Strasbourg and Bordeaux, occupy positions 11 and 12. They are followed by Nice, 27, Nantes 28 and Paris, in 32nd position.

Paris, eighth of the “big cities” in the world

But the ranking also distinguishes cities according to their size: S for cities with less than 500,000 inhabitants, M for cities between 500,000 and 1 million inhabitants and L for those with more than one million inhabitants.

In this last category of large metropolises, where establishing a cycling plan can be more complex than in smaller cities, Paris also occupies an honorable eighth place. The French capital ranks after cities like Hamburg, Montreal, Berlin, Melbourne and Tokyo, but does better than Vienna, Munich, Beijing, Sydney, Casablanca, Madrid or Barcelona.

There are other rankings that seek to assess the quality of cycling infrastructure. In France, it is the Federation of Cyclists (FUB) that stands out as a benchmark based on the feelings of users. Among the big cities, the 2021 edition placed Grenoble, Strasbourg and cities on the podium.