Best VPN for France 2023: Simulate a French IP-Address

In terms of the number of movies produced per year, the French film industry is Europe's most successful, with exports like Lupin, The Intouchables, or Amelie all leaving their mark on the world. There are more though, just waiting in French media libraries for a wider international audience. The only problem: Accessing them outside of France is difficult.

That is unless you use a VPN to bypass annoying geographic restrictions. VPNs not only make it possible to surf anonymously, but they also allow anyone to access servers around the world. All you'll need to watch content from French media libraries is connect to a French server and voila!

Of course, media libraries and streaming platforms don't look kindly upon users accessing their content this way. Doing so conflicts with their terms of usage, and they try their best to clamp down on VPN access. In our comprehensive evaluation, we looked at 27 providers, and below, will tell you which are best for streaming French content.

We selected our Top 5 according to three criteria: How they fared in our comprehensive evaluation, how their French servers perform, and finally, how many of our four media libraries/streaming platforms we were able to access with them.

To compile an average, speeds were continually assessed as part of our standard speed test. In the "Performance" section of this article, you can find the 10 fastest VPNs for France (speed alone).

During our comprehensive evaluation, however, we determined how well-suited a VPN was at video streaming by its ability to stream foreign content on four internationally established platforms (Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, BBC iPlayer, and Disney+). For France, we concentrated instead on TF1, france.tv, 6play, and Canal+.

Below, you can find our Top 5 VPNs for accessing French content from abroad:

We haven't created many VPN lists or rankings that NordVPN doesn't make an appearance on. The top-performing provider from our sample did excellently in each aspect of our evaluation, combining its superb speeds (first place in our ranking) with a high level of user-friendliness, plenty of features, and strong security. Rounding things out, a NordVPN subscription won't break the bank.

More than 230 of the provider's 5,000+ VPN servers are located in France, and they make their presence felt. For our French speed test, NordVPN missed out on the top spot by a hair. We were able to access all four French streaming platforms using NordVPN, making it our first choice.

NordVPN came second in our French speed test to none other than Surfshark. But, the relatively young provider isn't just fast: Surfshark manages to pack plenty of features and configuration options in its intuitive app, which is sold at an unbeatable price. For these reasons, the service was named our price-performer winner.

Surfshark's French servers, although unknown in number, are located in Paris, Marseille, and Bordeaux. As mentioned above, these provide excellent speeds. Unfortunately, we only had success with three of the four streaming platforms: TF1 did not let us access French content from abroad with Surfshark.

ProtonVPN provides security, user-friendliness, and a wealth of other features in a fantastic VPN package. But that's not all: The provider was our first choice among free VPNs owing to its high speeds and lack of data limits.

Only paid subscribers ("Plus" and "Visionary") can stream content. For France, the provider offers 45 servers to "Plus" and "Visionary" subscribers, but only 13 to "Basic" subscribers. So far as French server speed is concerned, ProtonVPN took third place, providing access to all four streaming platforms.

Mullvad VPN didn't achieve a high place in our comprehensive VPN ranking, primarily owing to its relatively small server network, lack of features, and rudimentary support. All the same, the Swedish VPN did impress us with its commitment to user security and privacy, reinforced by regular external audits. In terms of performance, Mullvad posted solid speeds.

18 of the provider's 700 servers can be found in France, propelling Mullvad to fourth place in our French speed test. In addition, we were able to access all four streaming platforms and view geo-blocked content from abroad.

PrivateVPN was another provider that didn't stand out during our comprehensive evaluation, owing to its (tiny) server network (100 servers) across 63 countries. Despite its name, PrivateVPN has not submitted to any external security audits and lacks some commonly sought-after features like split tunneling.

On the positive side, its client did impress us and its speeds were good. The same holds true for France, despite only having a single server in the country. This did the trick though, as we were able to access French content on all four streaming platforms we tested PrivateVPN on.

As part of our comprehensive evaluation, we assessed 27 providers as objectively and thoroughly as possible. Each review is divided into six categories (five scored). These are summarized below:

Installation and Features

A desktop client or app is your gateway to a VPN, so we paid particular attention to which devices and operating systems each provider supports and offers software for. These should be as user-friendly as possible, offering the most important features as well as configuration options and settings. The best-performing services were those that combined ease of use and intuitive design with an abundance of features.

Server Network

Server networks should contain as many servers in as many countries as possible. Put simply: The more, the better. The VPNs that scored highest in this area offer thousands of servers across dozens of countries.

Performance

The most important facet of our performance scoring was how each provider did in our VPN speed test. We continually assessed each provider's average upload and download speeds. Apart from that, we also looked at how each VPN did on a daily basis, in terms of surfing and video streaming.

To determine which provider is best for streaming French content, we gauged the speed of each provider's French servers. As of the time of testing, the Top 10 fastest were:

The chart below shows which French media libraries or streaming services each VPN enables access to:

Security and Privacy

VPNs are all about security, so how they handle your data and privacy is essential to their rating. We ignore "No-Logs" promises or guarantees, reading through the fine print of privacy policies to see if there's any cause for concern. VPNs should submit to external security audits and we deduct points from providers that haven't. Beyond that, we also perform several VPN leak tests and assess each provider's general security practices.

Customer Support

To receive a high support score, a VPN should make it easy to get in touch with their support staff, and answer emails or support tickets within 24 hours. We particularly like to see live chats which provide immediate assistance. Of course, static support is important too, and should include a well-curated and full-text searchable help center with plenty of guides and FAQs.

The five services listed above are the best from our sample when it comes to reliably streaming French content from abroad. On the other hand, if you're looking for the best VPN that can also be used to access French content, we suggest taking a look at our ranking below:

France is considered the birthplace of cinema, and the country has a lot to offer in this area. Unfortunately, geographic restrictions have made it impossible to access French content from outside of the country, unless you have a VPN. The services we've briefly introduced above are all good choices for accessing TF1, france.tv, 6play, or Canal+, allowing practically anyone to enjoy French films or TV shows.

Keep in mind that most streaming services frown upon this practice, and try to close the loopholes that VPNs exploit to provide access. As of the time of testing, all providers in our Top 5 were reliable, however, for more detailed information about each, as well as the other 22 services from our sample, be sure to check out our comprehensive VPN evaluation.