The distribution of proximity expressions in English and in French is not determined by geometric distance but by accessibility to the target. Near to or près de are chosen if access is easy and far from or loin de if it is difficult. Various factors determine the access to the target, notably the speed of the target, the speed of the entity accessing the target and the nature and route joining the landmark to the target. However, in objective descriptions such as those of geography or physics, distance evaluated relative to a scale determined by the size of the target and the landmark establishes alone the choice between near to or près de and far from or loin de. The second components of the expressions close to and près de show clearly that English and French take different perspectives on the access to the target : to in English introduces the goal of a motion whereas de ‘from’ in French indicates its origin, with English adopting the same strategy in far from. As a result, this language opposes to in close to and from in far from while French consistently uses de in près de and loin de. The last section of this article elaborates on a genesis of spatial prepositions set out in Vandeloise (2010, reproduced in this special issue). It evaluates the position of proximity expressions in this development.