Une géographie de la solidarité des villes françaises

This article aims to analyse the international solidarity relations undertaken by French cities. These international cooperations are multiple, and the actions of solidarity, called decentralized cooperation, are characterized by their spatial scope and their practices. The aim is to examine the concept of solidarity and in particular the evolution of its conception within these relations. The purpose of this paper is to study the geography of solidarity in French cities by means of a census of the cooperative projects carried out by the 80 largest French cities, followed by a semi-directive interview survey. Three results have emerged. First, the solidarity relations conducted by French cities are similar to development assistance in very specific areas related to the French legal corpus and lead to a strong asymmetry in the relationship. Secondly, the geographical distribution of these relations is based on the influence areas of French diplomacy, as a result of numerous incentives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Finally, the study of these cooperations shows how the notion of solidarity evolves through the growing imperative of reciprocity in the exchange.