Contenu du sommaire : Penser et faire l'Europe + Géopolitique locale de la ruralité + Varia

Taking a critical geopolitical approach, this article shows how Europe has been mobilized as a geographical object for thinking about and putting into practice transnational environmental conservation between Finland, Norway and Russia since the end of the Cold War. This study contributes to the literature on critical geopolitics and environmental governance by examining the intersection of conservation and international relations in post-Soviet Europe. It engages with scholarship on geopolitical imaginaries, which conceptualize how social constructed spatial entities such as Europe are mobilized for thinking about and putting into practice international relations. The article builds on existing research on transboundary conservation, European integration, and the role of environmental initiatives in shaping geopolitical narratives. By exploring how conservation efforts are used in international relations, this research adds to debates on the instrumentalization of environmental governance within broader geopolitical frameworks.Methodologically, this study employs a qualitative approach, combining documentary research with in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The documentary analysis includes official policy documents, reports, and promotional materials related to the Green Belt of Fennoscandia (GBF). The study also draws on forty interviews with policymakers, conservationists, and local stakeholders across Finland, Norway, and Russia. These interviews explore perceptions of the GBF's role in transnational governance and its function within European-Russian relations. A thematic analysis of the collected data enables a nuanced understanding of how conservation initiatives are framed and mobilized in different political and institutional contexts.This article illustrates how the relationship between the European Union and Russia is not the work of two monolithic blocs motivated solely by their interest in power, but that it operates through diverse channels and responds to the subjectivities of the actors who make it up at local level. Firstly, it shows how the development of the green belt was linked to the idea of spreading the values of the European project in post-Soviet Russia. Secondly, it explains how transnational environmental conservation is organized and actually operates at local level through decentralized actors.

European cohesion policy is often used as an example to describe the relationship between the European Union (EU) and local end regional authorities. With the example of the launch of the 2014-2020 programming period of the urban dimension of this policy in the Ile-de-France region, our paper looks at the mechanisms of resistance and adaptation resulting from the intervention of European Union in territorial governance in the context of the transfer of EU funding management from the State to the regional councils. The selection procedure for the allocation of European funding reflects both the internal tensions that exist within each territory and the way in which the Regional Council will use it to align its own priorities with those of the EU. Cohesion policy funds are considered above all as a financial resource in a context of budgetary restriction. They require beneficiaries to meet a lot of obligations and can be used in dynamics at work in the public policy management.

Against a backdrop of political conflict between the local and national levels in Poland, the City of Warsaw adopted a pro-European policy until the changes brought by the elections at the end of 2023. Using the instruments of the urban strand of the European Union's cohesion policy, it opposed the Eurosceptic government, which had a significant impact on its territorial development. So to what extent does this urban strand contribute to a transformation of territoriality in Warsaw? How has it translated into practice the tensions between stakeholders in a governance structured by conflict? Between geography (Brenner, 1999 ; Rivière, 2011 ; Laménie, 2019) and political science (Lascoumes, Le Gales, 2004; Pinson, 2006), this article explores the process of Europeanisation (Radaelli, 2003) “from below” (Pasquier, Weisbein, 2004) underway in Warsaw. This article is based on a study of this literature and a field research made up of sixteen interviews with actors involved in the urbain multi-level governance within the City of Warsaw and the European institutions.Through an approach based on instruments, we can distinguish two dimensions of European urban development. The first is tangible, based on the funding of concrete projects on the territory. The second is intangible, involving the networking of European cities for the exchange of experience and “good practices”. This distinction enables us to analyse the localised translation of the urban strand in Warsaw: local players are taking advantage of these two approaches, both to make up for a shortfall in available infrastructure and to adopt new methods of project governance. This mobilisation of European tools has resulted in a twofold Europeanisation. The first concerns public policies: local and European strategies are in line. The second concerns the territory: the implementation of Integrated Territorial Investments has undoubtedly encouraged metropolitan cooperation in Warsaw, and the creation of a functional urban area, as defined by the European institutions. This Europeanisation is taking place "from below", in the sense that local stakeholders are reclaiming the European discourse on urban development in order to adapt it to the needs of the area. In Warsaw, local stakeholders were using the instruments of the urban strand to oppose the government until the last elections in 2023. The conflict with the national stakeholder, who was Eurosceptic at the time, reinforced a European Union/City of Warsaw front: general policy was then translated into practice at local level. Multilevel governance structured around conflicts hinders Europeanisation.The change of government in 2023 seems to offer the prospect of accelerating this Europeanisation, with the national strategy aligned with the European and local one. However, this Europeanisation, considered “from below”, could then turn out to be a circumstantial alliance, in order to oppose the government politically. Especially as this pro-European shift has not yet been confirmed. In this case, the question of in a context of heightened tensions within multi-level governance will arise. In both cases, Warsaw becomes a textbook case for understanding Europe in its territories, by raising the question of the link between territoriality and governance.

This article explores the dynamics of multi-level governance in the Atlantic Arc, focusing on the strategy of the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC). Drawing on the theories of multi-level governance (Hooghe & Marks) and soft planning (Faludi), the study investigates how the BAC uses European frameworks such as INTERREG, TEN-T corridors, and the Atlantic macro-region to overcome institutional rigidity and defend its local priorities. Through the lens of strategic instrumentalization (Jacquot & Woll), the article demonstrates how the BAC leverages these European frameworks to balance transnational ambitions (macro-region) and territorial pragmatism (Atlantic Corridor). Furthermore, the reinterpretation of the Atlantic Arc as borderscapes (Rajaram & Grundy-Warr) reveals the tensions between institutional innovation and state-dominated governance, which hinder deeper transnational integration. In conclusion, the study highlights the complexity of regional strategies within a shifting European framework and emphasizes the need for enhanced dialogue across local, national, and transnational scales to achieve coherent governance in the Atlantic Arc.

This article examines living spaces in a border context at the heart of the Basque Country, divided by the French-Spanish border. It draws on an action-research project led by three local organizations: the Conseil de Développement du Pays Basque, an association with more than 400 members from the civil society of Northern Basque Country; the Cederna-Garalur association, which serves as a development agency in the northern valleys of Navarre; and the Universidad del País Vasco, particularly a team of anthropologist researchers from the university. This project, titled Mugalur, is funded by the NAEN Euroregion. It involved seven participatory workshops in seven border towns, with residents from both sides of the border. These 124 participants were asked to create sensitive maps by drawing their living spaces on base maps, then exchange and question their daily practices in this border context. The article interrogates ways of living and the various territorialities that emerge in a contradictory border context from this creative mapping material: on one hand, a “disappeared” border within the Schengen Area, and on the other, a sense of reduced cross-border relations. How can this feeling be explained, when connections beyond the border seem to be allowed and even encouraged by institutions?Drawing on a methodology that combines spatial anthropology and border studies –in other words, with a constructivist approach to the notion of borders – this text presents cross-border daily practices as lived by cross-border people. Using Lefebvre's theory of space, the collected data is analyzed through the concepts of perceived, lived, and appreciated spaces. It seems that crossing the border in the Basque Country is primarily expressed through consumption and leisure practices: therefore, the perceived space, is a space of proximity benefiting from the differential the border allows in terms of price and availability. By questioning the notion of “crossborder” in the Basque case and focusing on the lived space based on attachments to places and emotional dimensions, more fluid and diverse territorialities emerge, nevertheless. These territories come into conflict with conceived spaces which struggle to detach themselves from the actual administrative and state boundaries. Thinking about the conceived space beyond borders would likely be an European ideal that is far from being achieved in this case. Finally, the matter of relational spaces emphasizes the different ways for people to interconnect, depending on how they experience space. This question also reflects various ways of experiencing a border in an European context today.Thus, considering how people perceive, live and appreciate spaces and considering the multiplicity of border experiences, this text reveals the complexity of living spaces and the dynamic capacity to create boundaries and territories in a logic of (de)bordering. These different forms of spaces coexist and shape cross-border relations, which should not be seen merely as a relationship between two entities on either side of the international border, but as a relational network that dynamically draws multiple borders. The main contribution of this text lies in the exploration of lived spaces and territorial appropriations that reflect the tensions between the cultural unity of the Basque Country, which disregards the border between two states, and the relationship to otherness in relation to the formation of multiple borders.

Based on a field survey of students in Martinique and Guadeloupe, using online cartographic questionnaires and interviews, this article examines their practices and representations of Europe and its relations with the macro-regions that are most prominent in their imaginations (Caribbean, West Indies). The aim is to analyze internal and local representations of Europe, those of an internal periphery regarding a center, but also of Europe as a margin. Comparing the EU's discourse with students' practices and representations of Europe allows us to delve deeper into relationships that appear to be differentiated. While the status of Outermost Region (OR) positions these territories as a link between the EU and the world, Europe appears to students as an administrative margin on the other side of the Atlantic. The place (or the absence) of Europe in their macro-regional imaginations raises questions about mobile territoriality and the expression of identities in a post-colonial context. Students in Martinique and Guadeloupe use their relationship with Europe and the EU to (re)think their place and links with the Caribbean, France and the world. The students' macro-regional imaginations allow to reflect on how to consider the articulations and complexity of individual and collective relationships to spaces, which the concept of “in-between” helps to extend.

Since the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, mobile European citizens within the EU political space have been granted the right to vote in municipal and European elections in their host country. In France, however, only a quarter of non-national European citizens are actually registered on the electoral rolls in their municipality of residence. Little is currently known about the reasons and circumstances that lead these citizens to register and participate in these elections. This article aims to fill this gap by analyzing interviews conducted between 2022 and 2024 with more than thirty (non-national) European citizens registered on French electoral rolls. The study first highlights the significance of long-term settlement plans in France—beyond mere length of residence—in shaping interest in civic and electoral participation. Secondly, results emphasize the collective dimension of voter registration and electoral participation. In this respect, the social integration of these European citizens, particularly observable at the local level, is associated with the emergence of micro-level social pressures surrounding electoral engagement. The study also demonstrates the primacy of this collective dimension over motivations linked to a sense of belonging to Europe. Finally, the exercise of voting rights among these foreign citizens influences their subjective relationship with French citizenship. Indeed, many express frustration at being unable to participate in national elections in France, which leads some of them to seek naturalization in France.

Football is the world's leading mass participation sport. In France, it has the highest number of registered players. While professional clubs can be cultural and economic behemoths, amateur clubs, particularly in rural areas, often face significant difficulties. Yet these clubs play a crucial role in the areas where they are based, as major contributors to community life and social cohesion. The Union Sportive Egliseneuve-près-Billom, located in a rural commune in the Puy-de-Dôme department, is a case in point. Faced with a decline in the number of members and strong local competition, the club has had to adapt its practices, taking into account a complex geopolitical context in which territorial issues and the dynamics of the players are intertwined. This article looks at the geographical and territorial strategies implemented by the club to attract new players, ensure its continued existence as an association and strengthen its role in the community.

Since the late 1990s, Western rural areas are witnessing an increasing phenomenon of a particular type of urban to rural migrations led by social and ecological considerations. This contributes to the eruption of alternative lifestyles opposed to the mainstream urban way of life, taking part in what Halfacree calls the radical rural. Supported either by newcomers or long-time residents in rural spaces, those alternatives are built on place-based experimentation and exemplariness. This distinguishes them from militant or partisan projects. Some projects take place within low-density rural areas and contribute to their revival from within, while sparking off debates between conventional, traditional and alternative socio-spatial representations of rural spaces. Doing so, they get involved in and challenge local governance. We are interested in a specific category of rural alternatives: ecological community living. Those are micro-political initiatives led by at least three people, beyond the nuclear family, with the purpose of living according to their beliefs. They particularly aim at promoting ecology and solidarity at least within their own community. However, most of them are also aiming at a broader diffusion of their ideas and practices. We show how some projects which aim at putting down roots locally can impact local dynamics, contrary to others being more oriented towards trans-local networks. Our research is based on qualitative data issued from a multiple case study in Gaspésie (Quebec, Canada), Ariège and Orne (France). More precisely, we draw on 66 cumulative days of participant observation within 14 ecological communities, 33 semi-directive interviews with rural actors –either community members or public actors–, as well as informal interviews and document analysis. Our research is in line with the works on the construction of rural and rurality in a context of restructuration of rural spaces. It also draws on the French-speaking research on everyday life alternatives. Within these approaches, we apply Jodelet's definition of representation to the French theoretical approach of local governance (gouvernance territoriale). We first introduce how various projects show uneven bonds with rural communities, and how they are confronted to polarizing socio-spatial representations. Then, we explore three cases to show the extent to which collectives' relationship with the communities is determined by a combination of endogenous, exogenous and contextual factors. Eventually, we examine local elected representative and public servant's ambivalent perspective upon ecological community living, which can be perceived as opportunities as much as threats regarding their own local governance mission. In conclusion, rural alternatives act both as local actors and as representatives of supra-local interests working for broader social change. Hence, this article contributes both to the literature on the radical rural and on local governance in rural spaces, in a context of increasing multifunctionality and climate crisis.

A new alternative geography of the countryside is emerging through the departures of city dwellers in search of nature and aspiring to live in the territory differently. In the diversity of alternative places within rural areas, the thousand ecovillages already established in France come to question not only metropolitan lifestyles that are destructive of life but also the planning practices of rural communities. The visions of ecology and territory confront and tame each other, which leads us to question the role of these ecovillages within rural territories. Indeed, are ecovillages places that can trigger a demographic, economic and cultural renewal in rural areas perceived as in decline or are they, as some tend to think, class enclaves very well endowed socially, culturally, who came to colonize rural areas ? Through an ethnographic methodology based on immersions of several weeks in 3 ecovillages, participant observation and around twenty biographical interviews, this article will attempt to show both the numerous services offered by ecovillages within the territories but also their difficulties of integration with local communities and rural populations.

The Bruche Valley, located in the Bas-Rhin region of Alsace, is highly susceptible to the risk of flooding due to the overflow of rivers. In order to mitigate the vulnerability of the area, the French State approved several Flood Risk Prevention Plans (PPRI) in 2019. In the Community of Communes of the Bruche Valley, the PPRI faced strong opposition from local officials. This article examines how the municipalities strategically utilized the opinion issued during the consultation of public authorities and associated organizations (PPOA). This opinion represents a geopolitical discourse marked by a high degree of geographical coherence. Notably, it is expressed in a similar manner by all the local authorities opposing the PPRI. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that the sense of belonging to the Bruche Valley is a multi-scalar phenomenon that extends across officials from various territorial entities. This sense of belonging is intrinsically linked to the mobilization of these different officials and to the formation of a “discursive front” within the context of this opposition.

The Zero Net Artificialization (ZAN) objective is designed to fight urban sprawl and preserve biodiversity and natural agricultural and forest areas. After 2050, ZAN will be effective, meaning that any new artificial surface will have to be compensated by an equivalent “renaturalized” surface. To achieve this target, objectives are defined by decade. The intermediate objective for 2021-2031 is the consumption of space compared with the previous decade. Since its inclusion in the 2021 Climate and Resilience Act, it has given rise to an inflation of expressions and debates raised in particular among elected representatives. While urban issues such as urban renewal and densification had already been defined, the aim of this article is to understand how the implementation of ZAN in rural areas is being addressed in the national debate and in the expressions of local actors. This article is based on several sources. The analysis of the debate comes from the expressions of major national actors. Then it focuses on the parliamentary debate by analyzing the minutes of the public sessions of the two French assemblies, the Senate and the National Assembly, which led to the law of July 20th, 2023, a law “aimed at facilitating the implementation of objectives to fight the artificialization of land and to strengthen support from elected local representatives”. The way national press covered this debate provides a complementary perspective. As a counterpoint, by changing scale and focusing on the more concrete implementation of the ZAN objective in rural territories, the article uses local actors' opinions gathered in a survey conducted from March 21 to May 21, 2024 in the Gard and Hérault departments. The ZAN objective calls into question regional planning and development models. The 2023 parliamentary debate puts small rural communities at the heart of concerns. They symbolize a rural community fearing to be left behind by elected representatives' vertical policy, even though it appears that rural areas make a fairly significant contribution to the artificialization of lands. The flagship measure of the 2023 law is the guarantee given to each commune to be able to consume one hectare (10 000 m2) during the 2021-2031 decade, preserving the ability of elected officials in small communes to act, but it risks compromising, in a number of territories, the construction of inter-communal projects. The parliamentary debate has highlighted controversies over the diagnosis, inter-territorial relations and approach to territorial development. This national debate reflects only a fraction of the questions that are being asked locally. The implementation of ZAN in rural areas is a tense issue, where questions of identity and territorial control are at stake. It is approached differently, depending on the age of the planning process and the diversity of issues identified by local actors. Like other transition policies, the ZAN objective confronts societies with complex dynamics of transformation. Open debate is not over yet and elected representatives' real-life experience in rural areas go beyond land issues.

The control of public space has always been a crucial issue in Turkey. In different periods of the country's contemporary history, the political regime has tried to control space in order to better control the population, thus creating authoritarian spaces. Political, cultural, and moral criteria have drawn the boundaries of who is allowed to enter public space and who is not. The article discusses these criteria around two notions, “proper citizenship and “authentic and national, using the example of the various mobilizations organized by women who have tried to claim their presence in public space, thereby challenging state control. These mobilizations, which are often intersectional, show that access to public space is conditioned not only by gender, but also by other political and cultural identities that are denied and rejected by the state. By focusing on these struggles, the article aims to analyze the power relations between these mobilizations and political power, opting for a spatial analysis and treating space not only as a tool but as a real political issue, thus demonstrating the complexity of the dynamics of power and inclusion in authoritarian societies.

The Indo-Pacific concept suggests the importance of the maritime domain in international relations and more precisely in geopolitics. A support for globalization, and for the crystallization of tensions between states or non-state actors, the sea, in particular from the Asian coastline from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, is a privileged support for powers's strategies. Each of them develops its own interpretation. In this sense, the Indo-Pacific, first by its geography (maritime routes, straits, diversity of maritime configurations, port areas, corridors towards the interior of continents), then by the density of forms of rivalry and tensions, is the subject of sustained attention in strategic and diplomatic circles. In this third decade of the 21st century, the Sino-American rivalry presents many challenges. By mobilizing the geopolitical method, this scientific exercise puts into perspective the evolving framework of the Indo-Pacific concept (in America, Europe and Asia), and then presents the technological competition between the United States and China as well as its consequences throughout the region. The potential victory of Beijing or Washington will depend on their respective alignment with the diverse representations and desires of the populations.

The article examines the effects of project calls on associations and the local relational dynamics in which they operate. It explores the concrete translation of injunctions to networking and multi-partnership collaboration. The case of an experiment conducted within the framework of the 100% Inclusion Skills Investment Plan, led by a community social center, illustrates the complexity and ambivalence of the territorial effects of call for projects. Based on three years of participant observation, quantitative data on the individuals supported, and thirty-eight semi-structured interviews with consortium members, the article provides a detailed portrait of the relational dynamics generated and transformed by the widespread use of call for projects in a newly formed rural municipality in Maine-et-Loire (western France). While the institutional logics behind call for projects are already well documented, this article approaches them from the perspective of how associations experience and navigate them. It highlights how consortium-based projects can strengthen local networks but also produce detrimental effects, placing associations in situations of dependence and/or competition. The analysis of the case study particularly emphasizes the refining processes at play among partners, where competition and cooperation intertwine.

For some years now, European port cities have been abuzz with new protests against cruise activities. Limited to Venice until 2019, these protests have since spread to many cities, firstly in the Mediterranean (Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, but also Marseille, Ajaccio and Nice), and then elsewhere in Europe. These protests are part of a wider shift in the balance of power between ideologies and a growing emphasis on political ecology. The economic and tourism model of port cities, based on neo-liberal growth, is being increasingly challenged by various forms of politicisation. The example of the cruise industry shows that there is a renewal of conflict within port cities, with some elected representatives breaking with liberal corporatism, and a new generation of environmental activists. The aim of the article, which is part of the literature on port development conflicts, is to identify and characterise these forms of politicisation through an analysis based on a corpus of press articles, and to analyse the initial consequences of these politicisations on public action and the practices of cruise ship owners.