The Dynamics of Hyper-rural Areas in France : New Economic Bases for French Rural Peripheries

This volume provides an overview of research on seemingly, current and former peripheral areas and on processes of peripheralisation in Europe. Particular emphasis is given to questions of local and regional governance, to multiple actors of peripheralisation and residential revitalisation as well as to economic and ecological transformations.International audienceIn a context of strengthened metropolization and urban growth, official French spatial categories have erased the references to rural areas as a space distinct from cities and their influence, so that the adjective “rural” appears now to be an out-dated socio-spatial scientific reference. However, this paper intends to demonstrate that rural peripheries in France are still to be considered as a research object per se, since recent changes into the most remote, scarcely populated areas in France have occurred. Based on three recent studies, this paper will show that “hyper-rural” peripheries are growing again, with positive allocations of revenues and new, non-productive economic bases – but with remaining structural weaknesses at the same time. That is why an adapted regional policy is still claimed for those “hyper-rural areas”