Inter-municipal cooperation: a remedy for socio-spatial segregation? A comparison of six French cities

For more than twenty years, the French State has relied on intermunicipal authorities to rebalance the presence of social housing in urban areas and to fight against socio-spatial segregation. The Établissements publics de coopération intercommunale (EPCI) have been given instruments that allow them to influence first the production of new social housing units and, more recently, their allocation to tenants. In this article, we attempt to measure the effective rise in power of the EPCIs in these areas based on a comparative study of six French cities (Bordeaux, Dunkirk, Grenoble, Meaux, Mulhouse and SaintÉtienne). It emerges that the progress made by the intermunicipal authorities is clearer in the regulation of the production of new social housing than in the regulation of attributions. We note fairly strong variations between cases that result from two series of variables: socio-spatial configurations that cover the degree of tension on the housing markets as well as the socio-economic and demographic balances between the central cities and the peripheral municipalities; political-administrative configurations and, in particular, the capacity of ‘reform coalitions’ mobilized at the intercommunal level to impose themselves in the face of the ‘municipal machines’.