How safe is France?
Officially recorded crime for every département - 96 in total - with rates per 1,000 residents, on an interactive map you can zoom from the whole country down to street level.
Across all 96 départements of France, officially recorded crime ranges from about 24.6 per 1,000 residents in Cantal to 119.8 in Paris - about 5 times as high. A typical département sits at around 41.9 per 1,000. The two lists below show the five lowest and the five highest; the interactive map holds the full ranking, and you can zoom past the département level to see how the picture changes from one area to the next.
Safest areas in France
- Cantal - 24.6 crimes / 1,000 residents
- Lozère - 30.1 crimes / 1,000 residents
- Creuse - 30.8 crimes / 1,000 residents
- Aveyron - 31.0 crimes / 1,000 residents
- Haute-Loire - 31.0 crimes / 1,000 residents
Highest recorded crime in France
- Paris - 119.8 crimes / 1,000 residents
- Bouches-du-Rhône - 81.2 crimes / 1,000 residents
- Rhône - 78.6 crimes / 1,000 residents
- Seine-Saint-Denis - 75.5 crimes / 1,000 residents
- Hérault - 66.6 crimes / 1,000 residents
Popular cities in France
Heading to one city? These guides answer “is it safe?” with the same official data, broken down by neighbourhood:
Read the numbers honestly. Rates are per 1,000 residents, so city centres and tourist areas look worse than they feel - many visitors, few residents. Recorded crime is not the same as how safe a place feels, and recording practices differ between countries, so compare within France only.
96 départements drill down to 26,000 communes, including every arrondissement of Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Whichever area you land on, the rate is counted per 1,000 residents, so you can weigh a capital city against a quiet town on the same scale - as long as both sit inside France. Use the search box to jump to a place by name, or the locate button to find the département you are standing in right now.
Open the interactive map of France →