Thomas Angeletti (2023), L’Invention de l’économie française , Paris, Presses de Sciences Po

The article deals with the question of how cultural policies and the public support for associations have been transformed into security issues, as the control on the associations’ funding has passed to the prefecture. It is based on a qualitative study in the region formerly known as Limousin (France). It focuses on the emergence of a new policy instrument, the Contrat d’Engagement républicain (CER – Contract of republican commitment), created in 2021, which extends the criterions for cutting subsidies to associations. The study shows this instrument’s unexpected success in contributing to the construction of a local threat on the part of political and police actors. The study underlines the recomposition of the State at a local level that shapes the ability of the CER to cross bureaucratic boundaries and to “securitize” new domains of public action. In doing so, the instrument reinforces a change in the balance of power by increasing the Ministry of Interior’s control over public action.