COMMUNITY POLICIES AND THE FRENCH TERRITORIAL

The aim of this article is to estimate the impact of European Union policies upon the French territorial political system. Our hypothesis is that the European Union does not constitute a monolithic and homogeneous entity which clashes with existing government systems. This means that the European Union is not an actor that exists outside the system. Just as “dismantling ” the state is an appropriate step before examining public policies, we must also dismantle the European Union when examing its specific actions. We conceptualize the European Union, in its relations to the French territorial political system, as a range of public policies more or less organised by sectors. Some policies are well-defined and historically structured (for instance the common agriculture policy), others are emerging of even in gestation (ageing, youth), and others are formalised but quickly changing (European regional policy). For capturing the impact of EU policies upon the French territorial political system, we believe that an examination of European territorial policies (regional policy) alone is insufficient. We have therefore decided to examine four other examples of polic