France hides treasures… but also horrors. These four cities were voted “the ugliest” in France by an association.
It’s a distinction that elected officials would happily do without. Like every year, the Paysages de France association awards its Ugly France prizes, an award which highlights the worst attacks on our landscapes. The objective is clear: to denounce the visual pollution which disfigures the territory, whether it is intrusive commercial zones, anarchic advertising displays or unsightly modern installations.
To avoid any controversy, the association would like to point out that it is not a question of establishing a ranking of the ugliest cities in France. Its ambition is rather to highlight four places representative of what the association calls “ugly France”, four sites which illustrate the excesses of modern town planning.
For the 2024 edition, four municipalities were singled out in distinct categories. In the “Olympic Triple” category, Le Port (Reunion Island) stood out with its oversized signs atop a telecommunications pylon. Maromme (Seine-Maritime) wins the “Sign in Danger” prize for an advertisement installed on the riverbank. Paris is not spared, with its Saint-Lazare metro station awarded in the “Heritage enhancement” category for its invasive advertising installations.
But it was Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Île-de-France) which won the prize in the “Pub nursery” category. The city of Yvelines owes this unflattering distinction to its numerous advertising installations along the national 184, particularly criticized by the association.
-The reaction of the mayor of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine was not long in coming. When announcing the prize, the councilor confided to the newspaper Le Parisien that he “thought it was a joke” when he discovered this list. A reward that goes down all the more poorly as the city, already marked by the tragic assassination of Samuel Paty in 2020, strives to highlight its strengths. Residents particularly highlight the beauty of the banks of the Seine and the charm of Place Fouillère.
This is not the first time that the Ugly France Prize has sparked controversy. In 2023, it was Honfleur which was distinguished, causing general incomprehension. Some have wondered how to describe this Normandy tourist town, famous for its picturesque port and half-timbered houses that inspired impressionist painters, as “ugly”.
At the end of 2024, a journalist from the Telegraph also took on the perilous exercise of ranking the least attractive cities in France. Its verdict designates Fos-sur-Mer, Dunkerque and Decazeville as the three least photogenic municipalities in the country.
These cities, deeply marked by their industrial past, struggle, according to him, to seduce with their urban landscapes: Fos-sur-Mer, located near Marseille, is dominated by its refineries and steel factories; Dunkirk still bears the scars of post-war reconstruction and its industrial development; as for Decazeville, it is a former mining basin in Aveyron.
