For the fifth year running, France takes first in our annual Quality of Life Index. No surprise. Its tiresome bureaucracy and high taxes are outweighed by an unsurpassable quality of life, including the world's best health care.

1. INTERNATIONAL LIVING
2010 Quality of Life Index: 194 Countries Ranked and Rated to Reveal the Best Places to Live
By the Staff of International Living
Every January, we rank and rate 194 countries to come up with our list of the places that offer you the
best quality of life. This isn't about best value, necessarily. It's about the places in the world where
the living is, simply put, great.
To produce this annual Index we consider nine categories: Cost of Living, Culture and Leisure,
Economy, Environment, Freedom, Health, Infrastructure, Safety and Risk, and Climate. This
involves a lot of number crunching from "official" sources, including government websites, the World
Health Organization, and The Economist, to name but a few. We also take into account what our
editors from all over the world have to say about our findings.
Below are the countries that win our top 10 in this year's Quality of Life Index.
1. France
For the fifth year running, France takes first in our annual Quality
of Life Index. No surprise. Its tiresome bureaucracy and high taxes
are outweighed by an unsurpassable quality of life, including the
world's best health care.
France always nets high scores in most categories. But you don't
need number-crunchers to tell you its bon vivant lifestyle is special.
Step off a plane and you'll experience it first-hand.
I always wish quality of life indicators could measure a country's heart and soul. But it's impossible to
enumerate the joy of lingering for hours over dinner and a bottle of red wine in a Parisian brasserie. Or
strolling beside the Seine on a spring morning, poking through the book vendors' wares. Or buying
buttery croissants in bohemian Montmartre...hearing Notre Dame's bells...walking antique streets
paved with poetry.
Romantic Paris offers the best of everything, but services don't fall away in Alsace's wine villages...in
wild and lovely Corsica...in lavender-scented Provence. Or in the Languedoc of the troubadors, bathed
in Mediterranean sunlight.
Provincial French properties are often keenly priced and lifestyles are less expensive than Paris. The
Southwestern Midi-Pyrenees region is a particularly good hunting ground for village homes for less
than $100,000—and classic three-course lunches for $14. Houses cascade with wisteria blossom;
outdoor markets are everywhere. Foie gras, pink garlic, Armagnac, and crystallized violets aren't
gourmet fare for locals. Rather, just another day's shopping.
Le résultat du classement du “Quality of life Index” réalisé par le mensuel américain
er e
INTERNATIONAL LIVING classe la France au 1 rang pour la 5 année consécutive.
Parmi les 10 premiers pays, la France devance l’Australie, la Suisse, l’Allemagne, la Nouvelle
Zélande, le Luxembourg, les Etats-Unis, la Belgique, le Canada, l’Italie et les Pays Bas.