This study examines household preferences for staying versus relocating under future coastal flood risk in metropolitan France, using a discrete choice experiment. By embedding Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) into a mixed logit framework, we account for both economic and cognitive drivers of residential decision making. Flood frequency, beach amenities, insurance premiums, and local economic outlook significantly influence staying preferences, while self-efficacy, homeownership, and social networks also play a key role. In contrast, perceived flood probability, general risk aversion, and income have no significant effect. In our counterfactual simulations, we find that insurance-based incentives are more effective than information provision alone in motivating relocation. Furthermore, high-income groups are more likely to remain in exposed zones across policy scenarios, although willingness-to-pay estimates suggest limited income-based sorting. However, the current uniform pricing structure of the French CatNat system may unintentionally reinforce the concentration of wealthier households in high-risk areas while shifting increasing future costs to the public. We also identify a parallel between risk-sharing insurance and the safe development paradox. As a remedy, we propose finer-scale risk-based pricing as a reform direction.