Whether it's a question of transport infrastructure or urban planning, the "acceptability" of projects is increasingly in question.
How can we reconcile strategic vision and democratic consultation between the imperatives of general interest and local concerns? What are the levers for building trust? What tools are needed to better involve local communities and residents? And how can we rethink the governance of major developments in a time of major transitions?
Our experts Clémence Cazemajour, Aurélie Schraub and Cécile Gouesse invite you to discover the answers to these challenges in their report, available for download!
An issue at the heart of the debate
While the "acceptability" of projects was widely debated at the France Transport held from May to July 2025, and in June 2025, Clément Beaune, High Commissioner for Strategy and Planning, commissioned Prefect Cadot to "reflect on the legal and administrative levers for action that will enable us to develop a renewed framework for infrastructure projects in our country", The present report provides an overview of the issues and practices of transport infrastructure managers (airports, ports, railways, roads) in this area, as well as possible courses of action to improve the co-construction of infrastructure projects.
An increasingly complex context
Visit transport infrastructure projects in France are evolving in an increasingly constrained and complex context: constrained financial and budgetary framework, regulatory framework for the ecological transition (low-carbon, zero net artificialisation, etc.), but also articulation with regional projects, and better stakeholder involvement, beyond the recourse to concertation that has now become established. At the same time, a large majority of French people reaffirm their expectations in terms of investment in transport infrastructure (with scores ranging from 70 % to 94 % depending on the type of infrastructure).
Increasing difficulties in carrying out projects
A number of developments are making project management more difficult:
- An increase in the number of legal appeals and administrative procedures: in 2024, for example, nearly sixty road and motorway projects in France will be contested;
- The difficulty of projecting these infrastructures into a shared future;
- Finally, since the 2010s, the rise of local opposition campaigns (Notre-Dame-des-Landes, A69, LGV Sud-Ouest, etc.) has had a major impact.
Compared with the regulatory framework for consultation in France, Germany favors an iterative construction of legitimacy, in a context where, in a federal country, each level of government holds its own legitimacy. The regions, Länder and municipalities expect to be fully involved in decisions affecting their territory. This political architecture requires long and complex coordination, but it ensures that projects are perceived as "co-constructed" rather than imposed. transport transport transport trasnports
How can we better "manufacture" infrastructure projects?
The experts interviewed share several best practices:
- Involve all stakeholders: citizens, elected representatives, associations, socio-economic players, government;
- Take time for consultation: early enough to be credible, but not too early so that options are sufficiently precise to be debatable;
- "Giving people something to talk about": opening up a project to discussion by identifying what, in concrete terms, can still evolve;
- Empowering politicians and decision-makers, in their ability to assume their role in decision-making and project education;
- Distinguish between project owners and infrastructure managers, and avoid confusing political project ownership (which defines objectives, expected benefits and trade-offs) with technical project ownership / infrastructure management (which implements concrete solutions).
In addition to better "manufacturing" infrastructure projects, how can we do things differently, renewing the framework for integrating projects into territories? This report identifies several avenues:
- Engage people differently around infrastructure projects: mobilize influencers dedicated to the projects, use graphic facilitation, multiply and adapt devices to engage the territory, even develop local referendums on infrastructure projects;
- Dialogue based on territorial projects, rather than unitary projects: make consultation part of a multi-project approach within a territory;
- Keeping track of projects (and territories): getting to know your territory, its needs and challenges through contextual studies, tracing all the commitments and concessions made to the project;
- Work on procedural and administrative complexity: group authorizations, develop unified State/community governance, use and promote early voluntary consultation;
- Review the logic of association / compensation of stakeholders: approve transactions between the project owner and associations, open up the possibility for the project owner to amend public contracts on the basis of the DUP or initial declaration, without having to restart the entire procedure, encourage mandatory mediation mechanisms upstream or around the DUP to anticipate opposition and co-construct legitimate, publicized compromises.
