French NGOs and the state: Paving the way for a new partnership?

This paper asks whether French non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have fallen into line with the trend towards partnership with the state that has marked the Northern non-profit sector, most notably Anglo-American NGOs, over the last two decades. It shows how French NGO-state relations were poor over the early post-colonial years. It then demonstrates how, over the global era, the French government has made overtures and how NGOs, particularly developmental NGOs (NGDOs), have embraced these legal, financial and consultative concessions, while refusing to see them as the basis of a mutually consenting partnership. Finally, it explains the continuing lack of French NGDO-state rapport in terms of Resource Dependence theory.