The Best VPNs for France

ExpressVPN is without doubt the best choice for streaming in France.

Using it grants access to content catalogs from around the world including 18 different Netflix regions.

Even harder-to-unblock platforms, like BBC iPlayer and Paramount+, worked on the first time of asking.

We never noticed our stream buffering or suddenly dropping to a lower video quality either, which we put down to its fast speeds.

Our testing also revealed that ExpressVPN works with every major French streamer:

ExpressVPN is a great solution for watching French sports, too. You can use it to stream the Tour de France and the French Open on France.TV, or to bypass Prime Video’s VPN blocks to stream Ligue 1 matches.

ExpressVPN has servers in Marseille, Paris, and Strasbourg, giving you the option to get an IP address from the Northern, Southern, and Eastern parts of France.

The ExpressVPN app also displays a server location in Alsace, which we found is also located in Strasbourg.

The VPN’s large pool of French IP addresses allows it to deliver fast and stable connections at all times, even during times of peak internet traffic.

Another stand-out aspect of ExpressVPN is its compatibility with a very wide selection of devices.

In fact, you can use ExpressVPN’s well-designed apps on Fire TV, Android TV and Apple TV to stream geo-restricted French content on devices beyond your computer and phone.

ExpressVPN is also one of extremely few VPNs with a router app. The app is very intuitive and allows you to use the VPN on devices that don’t support native VPN apps, such as games consoles.

You can also make use of the VPN’s browser extensions on Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, although they require the full app to run at the same time.

NordVPN has one of the largest server networks available, making it an excellent choice for accessing geo-blocked content.

You can get IP addresses from 127 countries, which includes servers for all 50 US States.

We made the most of this in France, as we used it to connect back to our home country and securely access our banking app.

NordVPN’s vast server network extends to France itself, with 300+ French IP addresses across Bordeaux, Marseille, Paris, and Strasbourg.

NordVPN includes an auto-connect feature that connects you to the VPN as soon as you launch its app.

This is absolutely essential in France, given its track record of unsafe public WiFi hotspots. You can also customize this feature to only target WiFi, if you want to use your cellular network normally.

You can also use NordVPN’s Meshnet feature to connect to your home IP address for free. The only requirement is that you connect to a device that’s also running NordVPN.

This is really useful if you want to stream Netflix from France, as it lets you connect to your Netflix Household and avoid being shut out of your account.

Alternatively, you can purchase a dedicated IP from NordVPN to avoid needing a second device running the VPN. However, this costs an extra fee and is only available in select locations.

NordVPN performed second-best in our streaming tests. Using it, you can unblock content from geo-restricted streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, and Amazon Prime Video.

In particular, we noticed that NordVPN was most consistent with UK distributors. It easily bypassed BBC iPlayer’s geo-blocks and allowed us to stream Match of the Day in full HD.

We also tested NordVPN with popular French streaming platforms and found it had a 100% success rate.

In general, we never noticed any buffering or sudden drops in video quality while using NordVPN. We put this down to its fast international download speeds, with an average speed loss of just 14%.

Proton VPN doesn’t log your IP address, the websites you visit, or your physical location. This makes it a ‘no-logs’ VPN, which was proven during a real-world court case.

It’s also developed by Proton, a Swiss software company that’s known for its highly-secure and privacy-focused products.

This is great if you’re in France, as it prevents major ISPs like Orange and Bouygues Telecom from monitoring your internet traffic.

Proton VPN also uses ChaCha20 encryption to secure your data. This is essential for protecting your connection while using public WiFi networks in large cities like Paris and Marseille.

One downside though, is the absence of a trusted network feature to ensure your VPN only connects on public hotspots (and disconnects for your home WiFi).

This is a significant quality-of-life feature that would make it far easier to use Proton VPN while travelling.

While testing from France, Proton VPN’s IP addresses were detected by streaming services more frequently than those of ExpressVPN, NordVPN, or CyberGhost.

Even so, it remains a solid streaming VPN. We unblocked 6 Netflix libraries (including France and the US), along with Hulu, Disney+ (US), HBO Max (US), and BBC iPlayer.

The main omissions were ITVX, Peacock, JioHotstar, and all DAZN libraries except for Canada. We also noticed some occasional buffering and graininess, particularly on live broadcasts.

Thankfully, Proton VPN is far more consistent with French streaming services. Aside from Ligue 1+ on DAZN, it unblocked every popular French platform including France TV and Canal+.

Proton VPN lets you connect servers in 145 countries, one of the highest totals available.

As such, you’re near-guaranteed to have a server in or near the location you need to connect to.

If you need more granular control over your VPN server location, there’s also city-level options in 15 countries.

Proton VPN provides 678 individual servers in France, the second-highest of our recommended VPNs. This is backed by our experience of using Proton VPN, since we’ve never experienced congested speeds or high ping on its France servers.

That said, we are disappointed to see its servers limited to just Paris and Marseille.

CyberGhost provides streaming servers for specific platforms like Canal+ and NBC. In general, these work as intended, although we’d prefer if all servers were optimized by default.

Using CyberGhost’s servers, we unblocked 10 Netflix libraries, including the US, UK, and France. This is a great result, but it can’t match the totals of ExpressVPN and NordVPN.

This gulf in quality is also reflected in CyberGhost working with 82% of French streaming services, compared to 100% with ExpressVPN.

The two notable platforms we couldn’t access from outside France were TF1 and M6+.

CyberGhost still works with the following French channels:

• Arte
• Canal+ & MyCanal
• France TV (france.tv)
• Gulli
• Molotov
• Netflix France
• TV5Monde

CyberGhost provides IP addresses from 100 countries. There are very few gaps in its coverage so you’re likely to have a server near your desired location.

Its server list supports city-level choice in 10 countries, including France. In fact, CyberGhost has invested into the largest French server network of any VPN: 938 servers in Marseille, Paris, and Strasbourg.

Frustratingly though, CyberGhost’s French servers are not available via its Chrome and Firefox browser extensions.

This is a shame since VPN extensions are an even quicker way to get a French IP address than using a VPN application.

Despite its impressive server coverage, CyberGhost noticeably slows down your internet speed on long-distance connections.

Across every international location we connected to, CyberGhost decreased our download speed by 19% on average.

While not a terrible result, it’s a larger overhead than ExpressVPN’s 15%.

CyberGhost is just over half the price of ExpressVPN, costing only $1.75 per month on a two-year plan.

For the level of performance on offer, this represents great value for your money.

There are also several CyberGhost free trials available for you to test the service for free before committing.

You can get a one-day free trial on Windows and macOS, a seven-day one via the Apple App Store, and a three-day one through the Google Play Store.

On top of this, the company offers a very long and rare 45-day money-back guarantee, which it has always honored in our experience.

Windscribe is head and shoulders above most free VPNs for streaming. It can unblock 5 Netflix libraries (France, Germany, Romania, Switzerland, and the UK), along with Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, BBC iPlayer, and more.

Windscribe was also the best-performing free VPN in our France streaming tests. It unblocked 90% of streaming services, via its apps and its browser extensions.

We streamed the following French streaming services without major issues:

• Arte
• Canal+ & MyCanal
• France TV (france.tv)
• Gulli
• M6+
• Molotov
• Netflix France
• TF1
• TV5Monde

Sadly, we did experience some blurriness while streaming. It wasn’t constant, but it was annoying enough to mention.

We were surprised by this picture degradation, considering Windscribe’s free VPN speed loss of 13% (connecting to foreign server locations) was even better than ExpressVPN’s.

Windscribe currently has 2 free servers in Paris, which are available via the VPN app and Windscribe’s browser proxy extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge.

Considering most free VPNs don’t have French servers at all, this is very good. However, it’s far behind the number of server options on offer from paid VPN services like ExpressVPN and CyberGhost.

Unlike so many free VPNs, Windscribe has released intuitive apps covering all major platforms, including Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Fire TV, Apple TV, and Android TV.

It’s also one of the very few VPNs to have a Linux GUI.

However, if you want to set the VPN up on your router, keep in mind there is no dedicated app for it.