France has topped a poll of the best places to live in the world.

For the fifth year running France has been branded the best place to live in the world in International Living magazine’s Quality of Life Index.

The survey is compiled every January by US Magazine International Living and rates 194 countries across the world to create the list of places that offer “the best quality of life”. Nine categories are considered when judging the countries: Cost of Living, Culture and Leisure, Economy, Environment, Freedom, Health, Infrastructure, Safety and Risk and Climate.

France topped the survey for the fifth year in a row despite its “tiresome bureaucracy and high taxes.” The magazine said France’s world-class healthcare and its “joie de vivre” lifestyle outweigh any negatives.

Australia followed closely behind the European heavyweight and scored highly in most categories. It has also managed to weather the recent financial storm considerably well compared to many other developed countries and people who live there continue to enjoy a relatively low cost of living. Rising house costs, however, are having a slightly detrimental effect on overall opinion.

Top Ten 2010
1. France
2. Australia
3. Switzerland
4. Germany
5. New Zealand
6. Luxembourg
7. United States
8. Belgium
9. Canada
10. Italy

The top ten remained relatively unchanged from 2009.

The UK has fallen from its 2009 position at number 17 in 2009 to number 25 in 2010, despite scoring top marks for Freedom and Risk and Safety. It was let down by its scores for Environment, Climate and Cost of Living. The latter will see another rise this year as VAT resumes its rate of 17.5%. 

This week, Nationwide Building Society revealed that the UK’s consumer confidence recorded its biggest fall in December since November 2008. “The five point fall in confidence in December suggests that an element of caution may have begun to creep back into the minds of consumers over the Christmas period,” said Nationwide’s Chief Economist Martin Gahbauer.

Mr Gahbauer said that the looming VAT hike together with other tax changes may have had an impact on consumer confidence: “Although it is still early days, these lower expectations may foreshadow a more sluggish consumer outlook in 2010 as stimulus measures are withdrawn.”

For the complete scores for each country in the Quality of Life index click here ^[1].