Summaries This article looks at the extensive French policies concerned with preventing social exclusion, and it considers what this means on the ground using the example of a particular region in north western France. It looks at the background to the programmes generally known as urban or local social development, their goals and evaluations of their impact. It argues that the strength of the programmes lies in their attempt to reconstruc the welfare state in the context of changes in labour markets, by promoting local associative ties and a strong third sector, in getting progessionals working more strategically, and in insisting on principles of inclusion ( insertion ) rather than exclusion. Things are more problematic in the realisation of community participation, and there are confusions in the conceptualisation of exclusion which mean that goals are not always clear.