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The French tendering system for urban public transport services, introduced by the Sapin law in 1993, has often been criticized for its lack of competition. In order to check the relevance of this criticism, this thesis examines the degree of competition in the French market, using two surveys of the outcomes of tenders in the urban public transport networks outside the Paris region. The first one was conducted by the CERTU (Centre d'Etudes sur les Reseaux, les Transports, l'Urbanisme Et les Constructions Publiques) in 1996. The second survey, undertaken in 1999 as part of this thesis research, focused on networks serving a population over 200,000 inhabitants and is based on the official minutes of the organizing authorities on the deliberation of the delegation of urban public transport services, and interviews conducted with organizing authorities, operators, and several organizations involved in urban public transport in France. Based on these two surveys, it is established that there is a small number of participants in most French tenders and that the operators in general lack competitive behavior. From this evidence, the thesis identifies five reasons for the lack of competitio