We are fairly new to this lark and we are hoping to move to the outskirts of a small town. During her research my wife has just discovered this site. It’s horribly designed and hard to use but packed with information, although it is hard to know how seriously to take it. Most of the best marks seem reserved for the suburbs of Paris.
I’d love to know what people who are more familiar with France feel about it.
Like most of those sites : to be taken with a pinch of salt/reality. Typed in Carmaux where I work ranges from 1.8/10 to 9.5/10 !!! You need to know the town to understand what the people are talking about. Seems to be a mix of people letting off steam and moaning to others who visit and think everything is wonderfull without seeing the underlying problems (read “crap”). I’ve used the site before just for a laugh looking at what people say about towns I know, some coments are realistic, some are from people just having a go. From an outsiders’ point of view, you’d need to learn to read between the lines to get a balanced view 
Everyone’s opinion is different Tim, it would be interesting to know whether the people posting comments are local or have recently moved to the town/city they’re commenting on.
Interesting site… many of this year’s negative comments on some of the towns I know, do not reflect “normal” life due to covid - in my opinion.
I am thankful it does not include my own town… although it invites me to comment. I’m very happy that we have not been “found”… 
I tried it for some of our local towns - only the very biggest seem to be rated at all.
As it invites you to leave a comment… that will probably be the only way smaller places get entered… by a local taking the time…
bigger places will have hordes of visitors… thus even a tiny percentage of folk willing to take the trouble, will result in a place being “marked” …
I’ve just double checked. for us, the nearest town which appears in their responses… has a population of just 3666.
(we have just 357, not even a dot on the map)
I live in one of the top rated cities. It looks like most of the reviews are fake TBH, or made by people that never lived elsewhere? I mean the city is ok to live, but the comments are not representative of the life here.
Agree, I know some of the people who have left comments on my town, some want to have a go others don’t know what’s really going on. To be taken with a pinch of salt
I just looked up Albi where the average is 6.45. One chap, Keith81 only rates it at 3.8 and reading through it I find it unrecognizable from the reality I live with every day. Albi is a very ‘liveable’ town to be around imo. Keith81 obviously doesn’t live in the area and can only be an infrequent visitor.
Carmaux is a weird place Andrew, the first time I saw it I was very much ‘anti’ but three years on I quite like it. It’s quite practical for many things, easy to get around with quite friendly people compared to other parts of the Tarn I’ve visited.
Looking up our nearest town it is obvious that some people have unrealistic expectations! A town of 20,000 could never provide the same facilities as a much larger town……
From my experience it seems to hinge on the dynamism of the Maire and his or her team. The budget and annual grants etc are important but a dynamic Maire can transform a town.
It’s hilarious. According to some of the reviews life in downtown Dax is like living through an episode of The Wire.
Must go and drop off some drugs at ‘the projects’
Fortunately our little town isn’t in there but the main town in the commune is and the reviews are peculiar to say the least. However, some of them are before the arrival of the new maire who, I think, has made a difference. I liked the review that says it has nothing to offer except for the elderly (completely wrong as it’s quite lively for all ages but encouraging, as elderly is exactly what I am becoming 
)
Agen has a lot of comments like that, not all of them exaggerated. The homeless around Le Pin do cause a lot of problems.
I checked a number of the towns round here and a little further afield, and where I previously lived in France, and would say the comments were more accurate than not on most. Interesting that the inability to find doctors or more particularly, dentists was commented on in quite a few places.
So a resource to start with. Then go see more or find out and talk to locals. Nope I’m not commenting where I live or anywhere nearby (where there are no comments thank goodness) because we have quite enough Parisians down here in the area for peak summer weekends, thanks, and we don’t want it to get any worse 
