Nice (in the Alpes-Maritimes) was "high" on the list, the 5th most-expensive town in France of the 72 French communes compared. Another Alpes-Maritimes town, Antibes-Juan-les-Pins, was 11th, just beating out Paris.
Coastal towns in the Var did pretty well too: Hyères came in 3rd even more expensive than Nice, and Fréjus was only 17th, cheaper that Paris.
The survey was done 5000 super-stores, the grandes surfaces: large French supermarchés, hypermarchés and discounters. The products compared included groceries, hygene, beauty and other general items. The survey, released in March 2008, was done by LSA, a journal of distribution and "grande consommation".
One argument about southern towns being more expensive than those in the north of France is that the pay is lower in the north, therefore the difference between pay and prices is greater there. Still, the south coast of France tends to have higher rents, property prices and property taxes as well, so we don't see that having corresponding high prices is really a consolation.
Highest Prices
1 Ajaccio (Corsica)
3 Hyères
5 Nice
11 Antibes-Juan-les-Pins
13 Paris [map]
17 Fréjus
22 Aix-en-Provence
... down to the least expensive:
4 Calais [map, NW] 1c nw
3 Troyes [map, SW] 2d sw
2 Nancy [map, W] 2e w
1 Charleville-Méjières [map, SE] 1d se
The north of France has 7 of the 10 least-expensive towns, and there are more "hard-discount" stores in the north. The Hauts-de-Seine around the west side of Paris [map] is the departement with the least number of discounters, and it has 7 of the 15 most-expensive towns.
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