Abstract
France is administratively divided in “communes”, the smallest territorial division of the country, usually corresponding to a city or a village. The number of communes in France, including overseas territories, is 36 782. This high number leads to huge disparities in terms of population and geographical surface. For instance, 90% of the communes have less than 2000 inhabitants and only a hundred have more than 50 000 inhabitants. To make their administrative management easier, the state decided in 1971 with the law “Marcellin” to give the possibility for neighbouring communes to gather in a collective structure (hereafter called intercommunalité) in order to develop common projects. The idea is that two communes would be financially better-off in supplying together a public good, a swimming-pool for instance, that would be accessible to their inhabitants
