ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the criteria for the study and the protection of the industrial heritage as they have been developed in France. In terms of the preservation of the industrial heritage, however, the statutory protection of individual sites is not the only tool available, and other forms of preservation under terms of local planning regulations, for example, are equally important. Although the unthinking demolition of industrial sites is not entirely unknown, the main priority today, in terms of good practice, is the preservation of historic and heritage values in re-use projects involving conserved industrial buildings. In administrative terms, the findings of the survey, by identifying such exceptional sites, were destined to underpin policies of heritage preservation at national and regional levels. The administrative aspect of the location survey in underpinning policies of protection has also borne its fruits in a coherent movement, or chain, leading from identification to understanding and to reasoned protection.
