Historical Background
The vast majority of disadvantaged neighbourhoods are city ‘housing developments’ which provided homes after the second world war for the population arising through demographic growth and the rural exodus, along with needs brought about by the country’s industrialisation.

Many of these initial inhabitants left these apartment blocks in the 1970s to move into individual houses. Those who replaced them in the housing developments did not enjoy the same employment guarantees as a result of the crisis which followed the various oil shocks and the consequent mass unemployment. This affected immigrant families in particular, having come to join the period of growth. The housing schemes then declined into a process of impoverishment, forcing the authorities to react. 

HVS covered the ‘rehabilitation of housing developments’. These operations, organised in too centralised a manner and essentially devoted to refurbishing building façades, quickly revealed their limitations. 

Social development of neighbourhoods, DSQ, under the responsibility of the mayor, was aimed at dealing with educational, social, economic and public order problems with methods which were to recur regularly in the subsequent stages of urban policy, namely the territorial integrated project with local partnership and inhabitant participation. With the decentralisation laws of 1982 giving more town planning power to mayors, DSQ was to expand considerably between 1984 and 1988 and would involve 148 sites. 

The new goal was to incorporate the specific treatment of disadvantaged neighbourhoods into a more global approach to development of the agglomeration, taking its social and economic dimension into account. This led to the creation of urban contracts, an exceptional commitment whereby local authorities and the state decide together to implement a multi-annual programme for integrated urban development. 

In October 1990, particularly serious urban riots led the authorities to restore priority to neighbourhoods. A new procedure was introduced, the Major urban project (GPU), aimed at a thorough restructuring, including demolitions, of 13 especially difficult neighbourhoods.

Interest in urban contracts was nevertheless confirmed during 1994-1998: 214 were selected, covering more than 1,300 neighbourhoods. 

Priority was again given to neighbourhoods, setting up an official classification: the Zones Urbaines Sensibles (751 ZUS – critical urban areas), including the Zones de Redynamisation Urbaine (416 ZRU – urban regeneration zones) and finally the Zones Franches Urbaines (44 ZFU – economic opportunity zones), aiming at reintroducing companies into these areas by offering tax incentives to those recruiting neighbourhood inhabitants as a priority. 

Urban policy once again prioritised an agglomeration approach by strongly encouraging urban contracts to cover an inter-communal territory. Meanwhile the scale of the neighbourhood was not abandoned, since 50 of them benefited from Grands Projets de Ville (major city projects) and 60 from Opérations de Renouvellement Urbain (urban renewal operations), mainly investment-oriented, aimed at undertaking heavy urban restructuring, including demolition and reconstruction operations.

This generation of urban contracts was intended to lift urban policy out of its relative isolation by linking it to other national policies: social inclusion, reform of inter-communal cooperation, sustainable development, housing.

The government produced by the general elections of 2002 marked a further stage for the city by introducing a noticeable break with previous policy.

Development since 2003
A desire to renovate that policy has been present since 2002, arising from the following realisation: the programmes implemented for the past twenty years to improve the urban environment have shown their limitations. If urban policy has succeeded in improving the quality of life in some neighbourhoods and limiting the damage caused by economic and social crisis in deprived areas, at a general level it has not allowed a narrowing of the development gap and other inequalities between these neighbourhoods and the rest of the territory.

Following the 2002 general elections, the political majority decided to focus state urban policy action on a limited number of issues appearing as the most urgent priorities for deprived areas, mainly: urban renovation, unemployment and educational failure.

The Law for the City and Urban Renovation of August 1st 2003 is taking up the challenge of reducing the gap through a five-year programme of urban renovation aimed at ‘destroying urban ghettos’. The objective is to restructure these neighbourhoods by reorganising public spaces and services and overall through major work on housing: the demolition and reconstruction of 200,000 dwellings and the rehabilitation of another 200,000. More than 150 neighbourhoods are currently involved.

To achieve this, an Agence Nationale de Rénovation Urbaine (ANRU) has been created to process files and allocate subsidies. These subsidies result from the credits from various sources, combined to form a one-step funding centre: state, Caisse des Dépôts et Consignation (public bank), private sector and social partners. The objective of this pooling of credits is to simplify the usual financial channels, and thus improve their effectiveness whilst shortening allocation times. The ANRU will have €5.5 billion of state credits over five years, which will act as a lever to mobilise all the credits necessary to finance the estimated €30 billion for all the works.

The economic development of neighbourhoods is based on 100 economic opportunity zones (Zones Franches Urbaines, 44 ZFU created in 1996, 41 in 2003 and 15 in 2006). Tax exemptions are granted for five years to small businesses with fewer than 50 employees which set up in the neighbourhoods, provided they reserve a third of the jobs created for the inhabitants of problem neighbourhoods in the agglomeration.

An Observatoire National des ZUS (National observatory on critical urban areas) has been created, responsible for measuring the evolution of social inequalities and differences in relation to other cities or neighbourhoods in the fields of employment and territorial development, and improvements to housing and the urban environment, health, improvements in school results and the mobilisation of public services. From 2004 the government must present an annual report to parliament on the evolution of problem neighbourhoods and ZFU. This presentation will be followed by a policy debate.

The Law for Social Cohesion of January 18th 2005 has planned several measures in the field of employment, integration and new social housing construction, which are not specially dedicated to deprived urban areas. But two important actions are focused on these neighbourhoods: 

It is important to stress that policies and tools set up during the previous periods are still active in many instances, at least at the local level.

In the field of crime prevention for example, the local councils for security and crime prevention, CLSPD, coordination and steering bodies for local security contracts, are one of the founding pillars of urban policy. In the same field, the functions of social mediation have largely developed within the CLSPD framework and have received substantial financial support with subsidised jobs: at the end of 2003 more than 15,000 jobs in sensitive urban areas derived from social mediation in transport, schools, hospitals or public places.

In the field of health, urban contracts have contributed towards the structuring of health approaches at a territorial level. They have particularly favoured the inclusion of a public health policy in governmental thinking. The ateliers santé-ville (“Health and the city” workshops) are an extension and territorial expression of this policy.

Organisation
An organisation was set up in 1988 to implement this policy, comprising a Comité Interministériel des Villes (Interministerial Committee for Cities, chaired by the Prime Minister and gathering together all ministers concerned with urban policy) which decides on the action to be taken and grants state appropriations, a Conseil National des Villes (National Council for Cities, a proposal body composed of local authorities and experts), and a Délégation Interministérielle à la Ville (DIV), the administration in charge of implementing and coordinating this policy.

The DIV’s mission is part of a urban and social development policy built on three pillars: interministerial action, action through partnership with public authorities, and provision of special action resources – those of the National Urban Renewal Agency (ANRU) – those of the National Agency for Social Cohesion and Equal Opportunity (ACSE). In this capacity, the DIV oversees the ANRU and has tutelage over the new National Agency for Social Cohesion and Equal Opportunity.

Instituted by the Equal Opportunity Act of March 2006, the ACSE implements in itiatives across the country to foster integration of immigrant populations. It funds operations in favour of inhabitants in areas deemed high-priority by urban and social development policy. It contributes to fighting illiteracy and implements the voluntary civil service.

It will be the counterweight to the ANRU in managing funds under the “human” section of urban and social development policy. ANRU implements the national programme for urban renewal, which holds a budget of EUR 35 million and covers 530 neighbourhoods.

The French state apparatus includes important local services at the regional and departmental levels. For the implementation of the Politique de la ville new functions were created in these services. The most important is the sous-préfet ville, representative of the state at the departmental level for urban policy problems, a privileged interlocutor for other partners and especially local authorities. In December 2005, their mission has been extended and in the departments the most concerned by urban violence, six préfets délégués à l’égalité des chances, departmental prefects in charge of equal opportunity issues, have been appointed.

A dedicated ministry was created in 1990: the Ministère de la Ville (Ministry for Urban Affairs). Since 2003, this ministerial portfolio has been extended to social inclusion, integration, employment, housing and gender equality under the name of the Ministry for Employment, Social Cohesion and Housing.

Recent Issues
In the wake of the November 2005 urban riots, the Interministerial Committee for Cities, which met on 9 March 2006, approved a new partnership framework between the State and the cities, to implement the policy at the local level: the urban contract for social cohesion (CUCS); and he mobilised all of the Ministers around the urban question, by singling out some fifty measures within their respective scopes of action.

With the Law on Equal Opportunity of March 2006 the government has put in place a number of new instruments: the National Agency for Social Cohesion that will be carrying out actions for people encountering difficulties with integration; a voluntary civil service and other actions to foster youth employment in critical urban areas; a parental responsibility contract designed to make it possible to combat absenteeism at school; and measures to help mayors in coordinating operations linked to delinquency, calling upon “town mediators” for instance.

Today, the previous town contracts, that expired on 31 December 2006, are being replaced by the new urban contracts for social cohesion (CUCS). Signed for a 3-year renewable term between the State and local authorities, the CUCS are based on 4 concepts: 

A Budget on the Rise
In total, 2006 funding for urban and social development policy marked an increase of 12% over 2005. This was the highest budget granted since the urban and social development policy system was first implemented. In 2007, this trend has been confirmed (+15 % over 2006).

The budget for urban and social development policy is in excess of EUR 1.15 billion, nearly EUR 400 million of which is dedicated to urban renewal, with nearly EUR 800 000 million going to the Social and Territorial Equity and Support programme (action in favour of social and economic mainstreaming), most of which will be confirmed by contract under the CUCS.

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