Baguettes and Bandwidth: Head to France to Live Your Best Digital Life

08.09.2023 - 12:14 / pcmag.com / Best

Take a moment to imagine where you might have a better quality of life. Did France spring to mind? It does have universal healthcare, affordable childcare, a high level of civic and social engagement, good work-life balance, and of course it’s home to beautiful countryside and arguably the most desirable city on earth, so that would be a natural place to think of.

But what you might not have added in is that it also has the highest digital quality of life, coming in at number one on Surfshark’s Digital Quality of Life Index. 

The index measures the digital quality of life in countries based on internet affordability, internet quality, electronic infrastructure, electronic security, and electronic government in 121 countries. And, mon dieu, while France came in first this year, the United States came in nineteenth. It’s behind France, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, Estonia, Austria, Switzerland, Singapore, Sweden, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Romania, the United Kingdom, Japan, Israel, and Poland.

Comparing the two countries, internet affordability is what pulls the US down the most. France has the most affordable internet of the countries on the list while the US is 32nd, despite the two having almost the same quality of internet (France is fifth in quality and the US is sixth). The US edges out France a bit when it comes to electronic infrastructure and electronic government (how many government services are online) but when it comes to electronic security for citizens, France is far ahead. 

This last part holds for Europe overall. GDPR protects the data of those who live in the EU far better than any data privacy laws look out for those in the United States. 

The US' rank is a new low for the country. Last year it placed 12th overall on the list. And while internet quality and electronic infrastructure have improved since Surfshark started measuring in 2020, internet affordability and electronic security have always been what kept it from rising to the top.

So what to do if you can’t pack up and move to Paris? PCMag has some excellent steps you can take to improve your online privacy. And we just got done with our first-ever Best ISPs, the most thorough guide you’ll find to the best internet service providers in the United States, ranked by speed, price, availability, and customer satisfaction. 

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