“Child teleworkers rarely leave Ile-de-France to settle in a small village”

While not all senior executives and young graduates have moved out of the city to work remotely, the health crisis linked to Covid-19 has accelerated the desire of the French to move away from metropolitan areas to live in peripheral areas and intermediate cities. and for their minority, building an alternative life project related to the rural world. Geographer Ellen Millet for the Platform for the Observation of Urban Projects and Strategies (Popsu) and coordinator of a study that combines statistical analyzes and field studies to assess the impact of the health crisis on the movement of the French people, recalls the main results of this first phase.

Has the health crisis and prisoners turned France’s residential geography upside down?

No, because the first lesson of our studies is that a great flow of movement continues in the big cities: Parisians moving to Paris or nearby cities, others between the big urban centers. During the first incarceration, for example, the largest search flow between the two municipalities on LeBoncoin consisted of Parisians looking at real estate for sale in Marseille. However, we can see a “Covid-19 effect” in accelerating some of the migration that existed before the health crisis.

The number of departures from the big cities is increasing, and the French who leave them head for four types of areas: peri-urban areas, mainly suburbs, small and medium-sized cities, the coasts – especially on the Atlantic coast – and, finally, some rural areas.

What does an analysis of online real estate ad consultations tell us about the willingness of the French to move?

A study using data from the Meilleurs Agents site showed an increase in search rates after the crisis began: the French consulted more ads, which may reflect a greater desire for change. There is also a greater appeal to rural areas and homes. On Leboncoin, consultations of real estate sales ads increased during the first two imprisonments, and the distance between the Internet user’s city of origin and the city where the consulted properties are located increased, exceeding 200 kilometers on average. After a health crisis, when it was 175 kilometers in 2019.