Aid or hindrance to policy making ? Local elected representatives faced with State in the mono-industrial risks areas[Secours ou entrave à l’action publique ? Les élus locaux face à l’Etat dans les territoires mono-industriels à risques]

In the Durance valley (in French region Provence-Alpes-Cote-d'Azur), when comparing over a long period the relations between three isolated big factories and their aeras, we see interactions between involved stakeholders, especially the deconcentrated State services and private companies : to build infrastructure for collective equipment, to face periods of decline or increase in activity and staff, and to cope with industrial risks that threaten the environment. In 1980-90 years, a gradual disinvestment of industries is observed toward local sociability (decline of industrial paternalism) and about town and country planning ; a gradual decline of the state is observed about socio-economic development planning. Therefore, local elected representatives have to face this dual disengagement : they must answer new demands and are also confronted with new constraints. Because they are often current or former employees of these factories, they face the situation according to their social inscriptions and their personal stories in these mono-industrial areas. For this reason, the frame of their actions is restricted, even when the State becomes a controller since the 2000s. Far from relaying public action frames, they oppose it when it threatens their habitual ways of thinking and their prospected future.