The Bank of France published the 2025 annual report of the National Payments Means Committee updating access to cash in metropolitan France. It found that access to banknotes remained at a very high level in 2025, with more than 99% of the metropolitan population aged 15 and over living either in a municipality with at least one cash access point or in one within a 15-minute drive of the nearest equipped municipality. Perceptions remained similarly strong, with 91% of French respondents in the latest European Central Bank survey saying access to cash was easy or very easy. The report says the number of sites with at least one automated teller machine, or ATM, fell 2.7% from a year earlier, but this did not reduce the number of municipalities equipped with an ATM, which has remained broadly stable at about 6,500 since 2018, including about 730 municipalities with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants. Merchant-based cash distribution services continued to expand, rising 5.5% in 2025 to 30,057 points at year-end. The total number of ATMs fell 4.2% to 40,804 from 42,578 in 2024, with the decline concentrated in larger, already well-equipped municipalities. Municipalities with more than 5,000 inhabitants recorded a 4.7% fall, compared with 2.6% for those below 5,000 inhabitants, while the smallest municipalities under 1,000 inhabitants saw a 2.5% increase. These changes occurred alongside continued declines in cash use, cash flows and ATM withdrawals. Alongside the report, the Bank of France published a detailed map of cash access points in metropolitan France. The release also pointed to broader public support for cash, including the completion of the Bank of France's new banknote printing complex at Vic-le-Comte with Europafi and the European Central Bank's public consultation on possible designs for a new euro banknote series.

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