ABSTRACT
France is a big country for a student of infrastructure. It is a heavyweight actor in the field, with a reputation for getting things done, for confident steering over long periods and for technological competence. Spatial planning also has well-known achievements in the fields of urbanism at all scales. So both sides of the equation have some independent weight and examination of the two separately, and of their linking, provides a critical case within the spectrum of European experiences. In fact, to an outsider there is an excitement in studying the French experience, because of the sometimes unexpected contours of change over the last two decades. Of course, this does not apply to the French observers, who are wearily familiar with these changes which have broken down stereotypes so slowly that they may not have noticed, until foreigners recite some old chestnut of “the French way of doing things”.
