ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the major points of pre-emption rights in the French legal system and the specific characteristics of pre-emption in land planning. It exposes the governance of the instrument within the peculiarities of the French political institutions by retracing the history of its implementation in local planning. The chapter presents two case studies in the Paris region that illustrate local debates regarding the use of pre-emption in a context of land scarcity. In the Netherlands, for example, pre-emption plays an important role in local land policies and serves both the achievement of a planning project and the strenghtening of rent capture mechanisms. As a less widespread acquisition tool, pre-emption only triggered scant case studies by social scientists, especially in France. Pre-emption rights are very common in the French legal system. Pre-emption rights must first be instituted either by law or, most of the time, by a local decision, in accordance to legal provisions.
