The French state, a stakeholder in patronage networks : the case study of the employment policies in the Reunion Island since 1946

Based on the case study of government-subsidized contracts in the Reunion Island, this article demonstrates how clientelism shapes some policies, which leads us to use the concept of “clientelist policies”. In the first part, we prove how the tool of government-subsidized contracts are historically entrusted to the mayors to pacify the region and to produce clientelism in favour of the interests of the French state. These contracts are implemented in a context of a severe social and economic crisis but also of the fight against the autonomist demand put forward by the Reunion Communist Party. In the second part, we study how this choice to patronize a public policy determined a path dependence. This instrument has shaped a remarkably stable configuration of actors who use these contracts, not with the aim of integration into the job market, but always for social social and territorial control, and still in favor of the interests of the French state.