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This article offers a critical view of the contemporary urban policies undertaken in France in the name of safe, sustainable urban transport strategies. It seeks to show how a spatially and socially selective ordering is under way in French transport planning and policies by presenting an overview of research and empirical results dealing with the narratives and the implementation of these policies. Firstly, urban transport policies were analysed as narratives. Stressing users' individual responsibility and their capacity to adopt economically rational behaviours, and conveying moral injunctions for them to adopt the 'right', safe, healthy, sustainable mobility behaviours, a depoliticized framing of issues characterizes these public policies. Referring to theoretical frameworks related to neoliberalisation as a rationality, our hypothesis is that a neoliberal rationality feeds these policies by ignoring a certain number of macrosocial determinants. Moreover, the use of morality works as a powerful democratic anaesthetic that dissolves any objection. Secondly, we studied how these policies, legitimated by 'noble causes' and depoliticized, influence the organization of traffic in the city, and to what extent they lead to a selective and uneven treatment of urban spaces. While sustainable mobility is frequently presented as a major objective in the field of urban planning for transport and travel, contemporary policies do not seek to reduce polluting modes of travel overall. They rather seek to direct them onto bypass road infrastructures to reduce their negative impacts on the city's main sites. 'Sustainable' policies oppose the car only in certain spaces and for certain uses. With reference to theoretical frameworks related to the entrepreneurial mutation of urban policies, our interpretation is that these policies are part of urban marketing strategies of cities engaged in inter-urban competition processes. These policies lead to an increase in the value and attractiveness of strategic areas of the city, and tend to displace problems (cars, noise, pollution…, and deprived populations) to other parts of the urban territory.

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EnglishFrench government has historically been characterised by strong centralisation and an interventionist state represented by prestigious top civil servants. In this context, politicians did not have real power locally to produce or implement their own public policies. In the 1980s, important institutional reforms and ideological changes challenged this statist pattern and have set up a new balance of power between the state and local authorities. Focusing on the emergent levels -Europe, regions, agglomerationsmost multi-level governance approaches suggest that state is becoming 'hollow'. Nevertheless, this article insists that the state is still an important actor in the French political administrative system. In cases where local government is yet to be stabilised, a model of coadministration appears to be emerging, judicially organised by the state itself, and characterised less by constitutional, hierarchical exchanges and more by negotiated arrangements between local state and elected officials. FrançaisLe gouvernement Français a été historiquement caractérisé par une forte centralisation et un État interventionniste représenté par des fonctionnaires prestigieux. Dans ce contexte, les politiciens n'avaient pas localement de pouvoir réel pour produire ou appliquer leur propres programmes politiques. Dans les années 80, d'importantes réformes institutionnelles et des changements idéologiques ont mis en question ce modèle statocentré et ont créé un nouvel équilibre du pouvoir entre l'État et les autorités locales. Se concentrant sur les échelons émergents -Europe, régions, agglomérations -la plupart des approches en terme de gouvernance à multi-niveaux semblent suggérer que l'État est en train de devenir 'creux' (de perdre sa centralité). Cependant cet article insiste sur le fait que l'État a encore un rôle important à jouer dans le système politique administratif français. Dans les cas où le gouvernement local même si le gouvernement local n'est pas encore stabilisé, un modèle de «co-administration» semble émerger, organisé juridiquement par l'État lui-même, caractérisé par moins d'échanges formels et hiérarchiques et par plus d'arrangements négociés entre les autorités locales et les responsables élus. EspañolEl gobierno francés se ha caracterizado a lo largo de la historia por una fuerte centralización y un estado intervencionista representado por los mejores y más prestigiosos funcionarios del estado. En este contexto, los políticos no tenían un gran poder en el ámbito local para presentar o poner en práctica sus programas públicos. En los años 80, importantes reformas institucionales y cambios ideológicos han amenazado este modelo de estado y han establecido un nuevo balance de poder entre el estado y las autoridades locales. Si nos centramos en los niveles emergentes -Europa, regiones, aglomeraciones-la mayoría de las propuestas de formas de gobierno a distintos niveles sugiere que el estado se está quedando vacío. No obstante, este artículo insiste en que el estado juega todavía un papel importante e...