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Successful, livable leftist cities #1: Rennes, France [1]
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Date: 2025-02-26
Leftists and Democrats are barraged with an endless stream of attacks and propaganda by the right that liberal cities are miserable hellholes of crime, filth, unemployment, poverty, and so on.
I know pretty much everyone here knows that is not true, but I thought it might be a nice diversion from the constant negativity surrounding Trump to, instead, focus on something positive. As a diversion, think of examples of “what could be” or “things that are nice” instead of dwelling on the currently depressing situation in the US of “what currently is.”
This is going to be the first of an occasional, ad-hoc series showcasing examples of unabashedly leftist cities around the world which are generally prosperous, safe, livable, clean and attractive. Many of these are going to be outside the US — and in fact, I think the majority of cities I’ll end up showcasing in this series will be outside the US, since the US has obstacles erected by the American right which make it more difficult to achieve results that are easier to achieve elsewhere. To the best of my abilities, I’ll describe why these cities are pleasant, livable places using facts and statistics as well as photos and videos. I will also describe, using the distribution of elected officials in these cities, exactly how leftist these places really are.
I note I haven’t personally been to most of these cities, but am basing my observations on statistics, anecdotes I’ve read, photos and videos, etc. If anyone who has been to one of these cities has any comments or observations about them, feel free to chime in.
The first city I’ll describe is Rennes, France.
Basic Information
Rennes (pronounced more like “Ren” with a guttural “R”) is located in the Brittany (“Bretagne” in French) region of northwest France, in the Ille-et-Vilaine département. It has a population of 227,830 and a metro population of 771,320 (2022 estimate — source). This makes it roughly the size of Des Moines, IA, which has a city population of 210,381 and a metro population of 709,466.
Rennes is particularly notable for its large university presence, being home to two large public ones: The University of Rennes which has 37,000+ students and is home to numerous schools, institutes and colleges and focuses on the sciences and business; and Rennes University 2 which houses 21,000+ students and focuses on the arts, social sciences, communications and sport. There is also a smaller Catholic university and several smaller, specialty institutes.
The unemployment rate in the Ille-et-Vilaine département, as of Q3 2024, was 5.9%. That sounds high by American standards but is pretty low by French standards. The unemployment rate in the larger Brittany region is 6.0%. Again, that is low by French standards. For comparison, in all of Metropolitan France the unemployment rate is 7.2%, and in the Hauts-de-France region in northeastern France the unemployment rate is a whopping 9.1% (this is the “Rust Belt” area of France where Marie Le Pen’s National Rally has its strongest support). Unemployment rates in France have been high by developed nation standards for decades, a phenomenon which has been the study of much academic research for just as many decades, and there are a variety of opinions. If you’re interested in reading some ideas yourself you can Google why is the unemployment rate of France so high and there is plenty to peruse.
The largest employer in the metro is French telecom giant Orange (formerly France Telecom) which employs more than 4,000 in the area. Rennes has a large telecom sector in general. The second-largest private employer in the area is the Stellantis plant, just south of the city. There they make the Citroen C5 Aircross, converted this model year to an electric vehicle (appropriate for a leftist city!). It employs about 2,000, and as my link to the Stellantis plant news indicates, they’re building a solar park near the plant that will provide 30% of the factory’s electricity.
If you’re in a nerdy mood you can watch a video of the factory below:
Homicide Rates
The aspect of a place like France that really stands apart from the US is in the category of crime — or, more precisely, violent crime, and more precisely still, homicide. I will explain now how to get homicide data for French cities and départements ...
As already noted, Rennes is in the Ille-et-Vilaine département. Départments are administrative regions which are equivalent of somewhere between a county and a state in the US. In France, every département has their own official numeric code (I suppose this is like the US Post Office’s official abbreviations for states?). The official code of the Ille-et-Vilaine département is 35. In France, homicides are investigated and prosecuted by the national police (the equivalent of the FBI) rather than the local police, and the data at the link below is organized according to how police responsibilities in France are organized, which I won't go into.
We will first get homicide data for the Ille-et-Vilaine département, and then for Rennes itself. Since I noted that Rennes is roughly the size of Des Moines, we will then compare Rennes to Des Moines and Ille-et-Vilaine to Iowa.
To get the data, go to this link here and download the spreadsheet. The title of the link says 2012 but the data is actually for 2012-2021. Please note that if you download the spreadsheet and open it, it’s a big spreadsheet and will take a while to open. At the bottom of the spreadsheet, click on the "Services PN 2021" tab, which is the data for the most recent year. Each column at the top contains the official number of every French départment. Again, the départment code for Ille-et-Vilaine is 35, so you have to scroll over to get to the “35” columns. The first 3 rows beneath the headers (that is, rows 4-6) contain different kinds of homicides. Thus, to get the # of homicides for Ille-et-Vilaine, add up all the numbers in the first 3 rows beneath the headers in all of the "35" columns (there are 11 “35” columns).
We will get five years of homicide data, so pay attention to the "Services PN 2021," "Services PN 2020," "Services PN 2019," "Services PN 2018" and "Services PN 2017" tabs at the bottom. On each of those tabs, go to the columns headed "35." Add up the first 3 rows in each of those "35" columns. Again, those first 3 rows represent different kinds of murders. Here are the totals for the Ille-et-Vilaine département for the latest 5 years:
2021: 7 murders
2020: 6 murders
2019: 4 murders
2018: 9 murders
2017: 8 murders
The population of Ille-et-Vilaine is 1,051,779 (source). I don't think its population is changing that much lately, so I'll use that figure for all 5 years.
Ille-et-Vilaine Homicide Rate by Year
2021: 0.66 murders/100K people
2020: 0.57 murders/100K people
2019: 0.38 murders/100K people
2018: 0.86 murders/100K people
2017: 0.76 murders/100K people
For comparison, the homicide rates of Iowa from 2018-2022 ranged from 1.7 to 3.5 homicides/100K if you go by FBI data, or 2.7 to 3.4 homicides/100K if you go by CDC data. In any case, the murder rate of Iowa — which has one of the lowest rates of any US state — is 2 to 5 times that of Ille-et-Vilaine.
Now murders specifically in Rennes - more or less. A disclaimer: The person who helped me with this data noted that the federal police precinct boundaries often do not correspond with municipal boundaries. In the spreadsheet above there are two Ille-et-Vilaine precincts with "Rennes" as part of their name (columns GX and GY on the 2021 tab). I don't have a map of French federal police precinct maps so I don't know how well they correspond to actual Rennes municipal boundaries. Having nothing else to go on, I will simply use those two precincts. They account for most of the murders in all 4 years so I'd guess they're capturing the main urban area of Ille-et-Vilaine (which would be Rennes). Anyway, the numbers for those two precincts are:
2021: 5 murders
2020: 5 murders
2019: 4 murders
2018: 9 murders
2017: 7 murders
Using the above population of 217,728 we get murder rates of:
Rennes Homicide Rate by Year
2021: 2.29 murders/100K people
2020: 2.29 murders/100K people
2019: 1.83 murders/100K people
2018: 4.13 murders/100K people
2017: 3.21 murders/100K people
Let’s compare that to recent homicide data in Des Moines. Go to this link here. Again, recall that the populations of Rennes and Des Moines are similar (Des Moines is 210K and Rennes is 228K). I’ll use the same years for Rennes’ figures above.
2021: 14 murders
2020: 21 murders
2019: 14 murders
2018: 13 murders
2017: 25 murders In Des Moines’ best year, it still has 44% more murders than Rennes’ worst year. Using a steady 210K figure for population, we get murder rates in Des Moines of: Des Moines Homicide Rate by Year
2021: 6.66 murders/100K people
2020: 10.00 murders/100K people
2019: 6.66 murders/100K people
2018: 6.19 murders/100K people
2017: 11.9 murders/100K people Even though Des Moines is considered to be a relatively safe city by American standards, you can see that when you compare it to a similar city in France, there really is no comparison.
Politics
The west coast of France is generally one of the more liberal parts of France. Brittany, where Rennes is located, is one of the parts of the west coast of France where leftist parties have been strong for quite some while. I will probably do other cities in western France in future stories in this series (I’m almost certain to do Nantes, just to the south of Rennes, maybe in my next story of this series).
Let’s look at the politics of the city (and surrounding region). We’ll start with the mayors:
Mayors of Rennes, France, since 1977:
Nathalie Appéré - mayor since 2014. Re-elected in 2020. Socialist Party.
Daniel Delaveau- mayor 2008-2014. Socialist Party.
Edmond Hervé - mayor 1977-2008. Socialist Party.
The Ille-et-Vilaine département has politics which are decidedly leftist:
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Party makeup of the Ille-et-Vilaine d é partment assembly (leftist parties in bold, others underlined):
Socialist Party (leftist) - 21 seats in the département assembly
Miscellaneous Left (leftist) - 8 seats in the déparetment assembly
The Republicans (formerly UPM) (rightist) - 6 seats in the département assembly
Miscellaneous Right (rightist) - 6 seats in the département assembly
Left Radical Party (leftist) - 5 seats in the département assembly
Centrist Alliance (centrist) - 4 seats in the département assembly
MoDem (centrist) - 2 seats in the département assembly
New Centre (centrist) - 1 seat in the département assembly
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Of 53 seats, only 12 are held by rightists (and even 6 of those are center-right), 7 are held by centrists and 34 are held by leftists. That's 64% leftist parties.
Even the broader administrative region Rennes is in — Brittany — has gone decidedly leftist in the last 15 years or so. The Regional Council of Brittany meets in this building here. Of 83 councillors, 52 — or 62% — belong to leftist parties. Furthermore, the current president of the regional council — Loïg Chesnais-Girard — is a member of the Socialist Party. Before him was Jean-Yves Le Drian who was president from 2004-2017 and also was a member of the Socialist Party.
Undoubtedly the large university presence mentioned above contributes to its far-left lean, coupled with the fact it's the administrative capital of Brittany.
Visual Tour
Stats and verbal information are nice, but what does the place look like?
In the table below are links to Google street view photos. I note that a lot of these are unexciting, ordinary street scenes of residential neighborhoods. They are there on purpose — you can find plenty of photos of the photogenic, touristy areas of the center parts of most Europeans cities anywhere on the internet; but the ordinary neighborhoods aren’t photographed nearly as often. If you want to showcase how nice and livable a city is, I think it’s just as important — if not more important — to see the ordinary neighborhoods of the city where people actually live rather than just focus on the photogenic areas (kudos to Google street view for making that possible!). I tried to include a representative variety of neighborhood types. The photos are listed in no particular order, you can click on ones at random if you wish, though the first four do start out in the city center.
Of note, Photo #8 shows there is a fair amount of farmland within the city limits. And notice an amazing phenomenon in Photo #30: Not a single pickup truck in the entire parking lot! Photo #11 contains something that irks me that I see in a lot of European cities: The way they butcher the trees.
Next we’ll take a walking tour of the center of the city, where we do indeed see the photogenic parts. Video was taken in June 2023.
I could speak volumes about this video (and some of the Google street view scenes above). Aside from the quaint architecture, some of the more noticeable things about the place are:
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