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This article aims to define the personality of Japanese lakes. The importance of volcanic and caldera lakes is a special feature of lacustrine morphology in Japan, the consequence is that water is often acid. A large number of lakes are meromictic and their thermal curve is anomalous. Some volcanic lakes are crenogenically meromictic, many coastal lakes are ectogenically meromictic and biogenic meromixis exists in the south of Japan. The latitudinal gradient of mixis and the differences between the ice-pack of north-west and south-east lakes are due to the geographical position of the archipelago. The Japanese have studied and transformed their lakes for centuries, but the human influence is now heavy. This article ends in a French and Japanese limnological glossary.

Since French Society entered a « knowledge economy », political power decided that 8 young people out of 10 in every age group should reach the level of baccalaureat. In the middle of the 90's, the effects of the last and so-called « University 2 000 » plan may be measured. This new wave of diffusion of higher education equipment highlights several questions : is this equipment diffusing more and more ? Accordingly which kind of accessibility is the target ? Which spacing equilibrium is found between University and vocational training ? In France, I.U.T. and S.T.S. seemed to be good examples to give answers to all these questions.

The recent wave of cinema complexes which has swept through France has caused controversy. These new cinemas, which surpass ail existing cinémas both in size and quality, offer a new leisure-based approach which increases cinema going. These complexes follow the trend of suburban growth and have now started opening up out of town. They act as magnets, attracting other facilities but they are a threat to traditional cinemas which are forced to adapt. Futhermore, they are of financial interest and are important assets for the life and the image of a region. Hence, they are greatly sought after, provoking not only disputes between neighbouring communes but also internai quarrels, reviving old conflicts between the centre and the suburbs, thus disturbing the balance of the town. That's why regional planning committees have been set up for such complexes in order to avoid chaotic development and to protect town centres. These committees, although indispensable, are based on existing committees which govern the building of shopping centres and still need some perfecting. In addition, cooperation between neighbouring communes, which is constantly referred to regarding the building of facilities, must be encouraged.

The economic liberalization which started at the beginning of the 90's in India is a major factor of change. In such a poor country, it is a new challenge for a large part of the population. Indeed, after more than 50 years of control on the economy, the government decided in 1991 to follow I.M.F. recommendations. This was supposed to lead to tremendous changes in the country, in towns as well as in rural areas. In this context of change, this paper analyses the local impact of the liberalization of coffee marketing in Coorg, a highly rural district in south-west Karnataka. In 1992, the Indian government decided to free coffee prices and there by opening new perspectives for coffee producers. Entire regions are concerned by this liberalization, which affects much more than the coffee industry, but also agriculture, services and social relationships between people. In Coorg, the planter community, hardly homogeneous, faces the new context generated by the removal of the government monopoly in different ways. The coffee industry framework, the rural System organisation, the whole district economy and geographie interactions are being refigured. Through landscape analysis, interviews with planters and an analysis of agricultural census data, it appears that the liberalization is indeed the origin of a complicated process of rural change, the steps of which are difficult to assess.