The unexpected reason why Roubaix is known as the 'Hell of the North'

Last November 12, the newspaper Le Parisien published a list of the safest and the least safe cities in France. At the top of the list, in the negative sense, was Roubaix, a place that happens to be the end of one of the most prestigious monuments of the road cycling race: Paris-Roubaix.

Thus, it is not only for Paris-Roubaix that the city is known as the 'Hell of the North'. Not only for the great monument of French cycling is the neighboring city of Lille recognized as a Hell. The ranking evaluated cities with more than 20,000 inhabitants and cross-referenced data on robberies and assaults from the Ministry of Interior between 2019 and 2021.

The city at the bottom of the list of the safest cities in France was Roubaix. According to Le Parisien data, it appears in 273rd place of the evaluated cities, behind others such as Lille (265), Bordeaux (268), Marseille (263), Paris (253) or Lyon (248). According to the director of research at the CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique).

As written by our colleagues at CiclismoAlDia, it is worth noting that on the ground Roubaix is noted to be a very green city with pleasant residential areas.