Special issue: Multi-level governance and spatial policy in the European Union

France, in the context of intergovernmental negotiation, integrated the Structural Funds as one of the levers of its policy of regional planning. It did this without changing its lines of action substantially, and in particular without renewing regional policy, born in the 1960s. The main national trends thus continued to depend on the strategic choices operated by the State throughout this period. The inter‐institutional relations evolved, while revealing a tendency to regionalization of the State itself. The management of the Structural Funds was thus one of the principal levers of legitimation of regional management, even if powerful interests, resources and legitimacies remain at the other territorial levels. The implementation of partnerships shows a balance of power in constant evolution. Certain barriers were crossed by the French regions, even if there remain serious barriers to their constitution as a privileged level of European territorial action. Across these constraints, the dynamics of partnership show that the regions have rather different characteristics. This is due to their contrasting interactions, networks and regional policy styles.