One French City Is Obsessed With Its Trees—and It's Paying Off

There’s a 240-year-old purple beech tree standing in the French city of Sceaux, and it’s basically a celebrity. Not because it’s Instagram-famous or has its own merchandise deal, but because the city has decided that every tree—whether it’s this ancient giant or a newly planted sapling—deserves serious investment and protection.

Sceaux isn’t just tree-friendly; it’s methodically, creatively obsessed. The city is home to more than 65,000 trees across parks, green spaces, and private properties. To keep them thriving amid pollution, extreme weather, disease, and reduced rainfall, Mayor Philippe Laurent and his team adopted a Tree Charter—a comprehensive strategy that goes way beyond“plant a tree and hope for the best.”

Here’s where it gets interesting. Sceaux now plants only species adapted to the local soil and climate, runs educational workshops and guided walks for residents and schoolchildren, and offers subsidies of up to €200 for residents who want to plant trees on their own property. The city even encourages major landowners to protect trees on their land and has rules in place to protect trees during construction work. The city’s tree team gets inventive, too—they’ve installed wheelchair-friendly grills to protect tree roots and inject nutrient supplements into the soil around struggling trees. This isn’t policy theater; it’s genuine, long-term urban stewardship.

Mayor Laurent frames it simply:“We see trees as a long-term investment. They boost biodiversity, they contribute to urban resilience, they help us to relax.”The economic case is compelling, too. Lisbon earns $4.48 for each $1 invested in urban forestry projects—meaning trees aren’t just good for the soul; they’re good for the city budget.

What Sceaux understands that many cities don’t is that protecting a plant heritage“requires both individual and collective action,”as Mayor Laurent puts it. It’s not enough to plant trees and walk away. It takes education, infrastructure, incentives, and the kind of long-view thinking that most municipal governments struggle to sustain. Sceaux has built a culture where trees matter—where a 143-tree“Remarkable Trees”registry exists, where schoolchildren learn to identify and appreciate them, and where the city’s budget reflects that commitment.

In an era when urban spaces are shrinking and concrete is expanding, Sceaux is asking a radical question: What if we treated trees like the irreplaceable assets they actually are?