FRENCH WEST COAST

Shaping the France to come

France has not yet grasped the genius of its West Coast.

Our geography and economics lessons taught us to look East.

Towards that great figure of European prosperity: the famous Blue Banana, the corridor of wealth linking southern England, the Ruhr, Switzerland and northern Italy, which on its own concentrates nearly a quarter of European GDP.

But now let us look West.

Another shape is emerging: an arc that has so far been discreet, powerful only for the past decade or so, which starts in the Spanish Basque Country, runs up through Biarritz, Bordeaux, La Rochelle, Nantes, Rennes… and stretches all the way to the Breton coast.

Territorial arc of the French Atlantic seaboard, compared with European regions (population density, NUTS 3)

A coastline. A seaboard. A world in the making: the French West Coast.

For now, it is neither a tourism slogan, nor a land developer’s project, nor a state-led spatial planning strategy.

It is first and foremost an organic phenomenon. No one planned it. No one designed it. But the figures are there.

Millions of individual decisions, by businesses, students, families, doctors, entrepreneurs… are producing the French West Coast before our eyes.

Over the past ten years:

✼ the Atlantic arc has created 1/4 of French jobs,

✼ a massive share of French residential moves is heading West, with coastal départements whose population is growing 4 times faster than in the rest of France,

✼ the most mobile working people (doctors, self-employed workers...) are naturally converging on the west, and many others would like to follow.

French geography is being reconfigured.

This phenomenon is economic, hedonistic, climatic, cultural and almost anthropological. The ocean breeze tempers the summers. The open landscapes relax us. The cities of the west coast are on a human scale. Urban densities there are still modest. France’s West Coast breathes, and attracts.

In a world where talent, but also working people as a whole, as well as retirees, choose where to live before choosing what to do, this means a great deal.

Of course, this attractiveness also creates tensions: a housing crisis, a reflex to close ranks, overstretched facilities, areas lagging behind in their planning.

A classic. Don’t all the world’s attractive regions go through this?

But behind these tensions lies a more strategic question for France: at a historic moment when many of our strengths are eroding (industrial, technological, demographic…), is French geography, the incredible diversity of its living environments, not becoming one of the nation’s great assets for the decades to come?

A magnificent, almost unspoilt Atlantic seaboard. Lively metropolitan areas, still in their infancy. An area already inhabited almost everywhere, with a still immense capacity to welcome newcomers.

A quality of life capable of attracting and motivating the driving forces we are counting on to build the France to come.

After work, the beach: isn’t that tomorrow’s social contract?

The French West Coast is on trend. What we have not yet realised is that it may be one of France’s greatest opportunities of the 21st century.

On 18 and 19 September 2025 in Rennes, the Organic Cities II — French West Coast symposium, organised by Villes Vivantes, Sciences Po Rennes and the OFCE, brought together 70 talks, 10 round tables and 600 registered participants around a single question: is the Atlantic seaboard a geographical and political option for the France to come?

All the contributions are published here → Organic Cities II: proceedings and replays

Here are a few extracts.

The France to come: an introduction to the organic reshaping under way

✼ La French West Coast? [The French West Coast?] — David Miet, urban planner, president of Villes Vivantes ↗

✼ Polyphonie: les vides et les pleins de l'espace français [Polyphony: the voids and solids of French space] — Jacques Lévy, geographer, winner of the Vautrin-Lud Prize ↗

✼ Densification d'une part, désertification de l'autre: la nature peut-elle tirer parti du retrait de l'homme? [Densification on one side, depopulation on the other: can nature take advantage of human withdrawal?] — Thomas Hanss, urban planner and landscape architect, co-founder of Villes Vivantes ↗

Between the frenzy for the coast and the retreat of the shoreline: what options are there for welcoming newcomers and democratising access to the West Coast?

✼ La Côte Ouest française face à son potentiel démographique: et si on élevait les capacités d'accueil à la hauteur des besoins? [The French West Coast and its demographic potential: what if we raised capacity to match needs?] — Lucas Pouvreau, geographer and urban planner, head of studies at Villes Vivantes ↗

✼ Projection du trait de côte et analyse des impacts à horizon 2100 [Shoreline projections and impact analysis to 2100] — Julia Jordan, deputy director for risks, water and the sea at Cerema (a French public agency for climate adaptation and regional planning expertise) ↗

✼ Densifier pour accueillir plus, une opportunité pour le climat? [Densifying to house more people: an opportunity for the climate?] — Xavier Timbeau, director of the OFCE, Sciences Po Paris ↗

Towards a resilient, robust or antifragile coast?

✼ La ville dans laquelle vous vivez ne devrait pas exister [The city you live in should not exist] — Nolan Gray, urban planner, legislative and research director at California YIMBY ↗

✼ Modélisation et politique de réduction des risques littoraux à Tokyo et New-York [Modelling and coastal risk reduction policy in Tokyo and New York] — Yuki Miura, engineer and researcher, New York University ↗

✼ Qu'est-ce qu'un territoire anti-fragile? [What is an antifragile area?] — Julien Meyrignac, urban planner, co-founder of Public(s) ↗

From Greater Paris to the Greater West Coast?

✼ “Partager Paris”: pourquoi l'échelle métropolitaine est-elle la seule véritable option? [“Sharing Paris”: why is the metropolitan scale the only real option?] — Marion Waller, urban planner and philosopher, director of the Pavillon de l'Arsenal ↗

✼ 20 ans de Grand Paris: pourquoi un réseau de transport ne suffit-il pas? [20 years of Greater Paris: why is a transport network not enough?] — Daniel Béhar, geographer ↗

✼ Paris, Côte Ouest: quelle démocratie pour des espaces en mouvement? [Paris, West Coast: what kind of democracy for spaces in motion?] — Jacques Lévy, geographer, winner of the Vautrin-Lud Prize ↗

✼ Trois scénarios pour faire grandir la côte ouest [Three scenarios for growing the West Coast] — David Miet, urban planner, president of Villes Vivantes ↗

How do we stop architecture from ruining everything?

✼ Le biais du survivant: la beauté que nous voyons est celle que nous avons choisi de sauver [Survivorship bias: the beauty we see is the beauty we chose to save] — Samuel Hughes, journalist and researcher, Oxford University ↗

✼ La Grande Motte, de nouveau à la mode 60 ans plus tard? [La Grande Motte: back in fashion 60 years on?] — Pierre-Louis Leclercq, architect, Agence Leclercq Associés ↗

✼ Le style néo-régional basque, efficacité et controverses [The neo-regional Basque style: effectiveness and controversies] — Jacques Battesti, head of collections at the Musée Basque et de l'histoire de Bayonne ↗

✼ La densification douce et ses micro-folies [Gentle densification and its micro-follies] — Amandine Hernandez, urban planner and architect, co-founder of Villes Vivantes ↗

Democratising tourism, overtourism and the local economy

✼ À partir de quand peut-on considérer qu'il y a surtourisme? [At what point can we speak of overtourism?] — Linda Lainé, journalist specialising in tourism, editor-in-chief of L'Écho touristique ↗

✼ La concentration des lits touristiques est-elle la meilleure solution pour démocratiser le tourisme et, en même temps, limiter son impact environnemental? [Is concentrating tourist beds the best way to democratise tourism while limiting its environmental impact?] — Jean Pinard, geographer, former director general of the Comité Régional du Tourisme et des Loisirs d'Occitanie ↗

✼ Peut-on encore viser l'attractivité touristique? [Can we still aim to attract tourists?] — Jessica Viscart, deputy director of Tourisme Bretagne ↗

Equipping the coast and its hinterland: infrastructure

✼ Relier la côte ouest [Connecting the West Coast] — Timothy Jackson, co-founder of Velvet ↗

✼ Améliorer la mobilité du quotidien sur la côte ouest: rapprocher l'offre de la demande [Improving everyday mobility on the West Coast: bringing supply closer to demand] — Thierry Mallet, CEO of Transdev ↗

✼ Littoralisation et mobilités [Coastal concentration and mobility] — Aurélie Jehanno, consulting director at SYSTRA, associate lecturer at Sciences Po Rennes ↗

✼ Bordeaux Métropole est-elle assez grande pour se payer un métro? [Is Bordeaux Métropole big enough to afford a metro?] — Mickaël Baubonne, founder of the “métro de Bordeaux” project, lecturer and researcher at the Université de Haute-Alsace ↗

Equipping the coast and its hinterland: housing

✼ Peut-on produire du logement social sur le (rétro) littoral? [Can social housing be built on the coast and its hinterland?] — Muriel Boulmier, regional councillor, president of the Union régionale HLM de Nouvelle-Aquitaine (the regional federation of social housing bodies) ↗

✼ Reconfigurer et rénover l'existant: un réel levier pour accueillir? [Reconfiguring and renovating existing buildings: a real lever for housing more people?] — Gilles Barnet, head of the Housing department at Morlaix Communauté ↗

✼ La densification douce de la côte ouest: peut-on produire 50% de logements abordables en coopérant avec les habitants? [Gentle densification of the West Coast: can 50% affordable housing be produced by cooperating with residents?] — Thomas Hanss, urban planner and landscape architect, co-founder of Villes Vivantes ↗

The coast as an asset for attracting and retaining talent?

✼ Industrie européenne: recréer des avantages ou disparaître? [European industry: recreate advantages or disappear?] — Antoine Foucher, president of Quintet Conseil ↗

✼ Rennes est-elle une métropole suffisamment grande pour recruter et développer un projet technologique ambitieux? [Is Rennes a big enough metropolis to recruit for and develop an ambitious technology project?] — Mathilde Martin, geographer, general secretary of Sweetch Energy ↗

✼ Attirer les talents pour la compétitivité et la performance française [Attracting talent for French competitiveness and performance] — Pierre Leroy, president of the French Proptech ↗

After the factory, the beach: the social contract of tomorrow's industry?

✼ Saint-Nazaire: ville active, ville plaisir [Saint-Nazaire: a working city, a city of leisure] — Christophe Cotta, deputy mayor of Saint-Nazaire ↗

✼ Pourquoi le littoral est un atout majeur pour recruter et fidéliser les profils techniques? [Why is the coast a major asset for recruiting and retaining technical staff?] — Hervé Kermarrec, president of Groupe Kermarrec, president of MEDEF Bretagne (the regional branch of the French employers' federation) ↗

✼ Réindustrialiser, électrifier, décarboner, numériser: l'infrastructure portuaire au cœur des transitions énergétique et numérique [Reindustrialising, electrifying, decarbonising, digitising: port infrastructure at the heart of the energy and digital transitions] — Cécile Maisonneuve, president and founder of DECYSIVE ↗

Perspectives from elsewhere

✼ Le programme New Towns: 12 villes nouvelles et 1,5 million de logements neufs pour enrayer la pénurie de logements et libérer le potentiel économique régional de l'Angleterre? [The New Towns programme: 12 new towns and 1.5 million new homes to halt the housing shortage and unlock England's regional economic potential?] — Patrick Lamson, PhD in urban planning, Marron Institute NYU ↗

✼ California Forever: entre San Francisco et Sacramento, une ville nouvelle comme réponse au désastre du logement en Californie? [California Forever: between San Francisco and Sacramento, a new town as a response to California's housing disaster?] — Gabriel Metcalf, urban planner, California Forever ↗

✼ Aménager un littoral à haute intensité: Da Nang — littoral, métropole, village [Planning a high-intensity coast: Da Nang — coast, metropolis, village] — Michael Waibel, geographer, University of Hamburg ↗

✼ De Tanger à Casablanca: l'aménagement du littoral au service de l'ambition industrielle du Royaume? [From Tangier to Casablanca: coastal planning serving the Kingdom's industrial ambitions?] — Ahmed Khalid Benomar, economist, special adviser to the Ministère de l'Économie et des Finances du Maroc ↗

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