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The French Third Republic, by legalizing
the action of associations, has harnessed
the labour movement inspired
by associationist collectivism. In its twofold
desire to avoid socialism and to
reform capitalism, the solidaristic republic
recognizes the right to form an association
but dissociates this from the political
expression of citizenship. Associationnist
socialists such as Malon, Fournière
and Jaurès have nonetheless shaped
the outline of a democracy in which
the socialization of production facilities,
public services and individual protection
systems cannot be dissociated
from the socialization of power.

Public interest associations, which are
now being called upon to relay governmental
action, are in danger of being
taken over by market and political forces
for their own ends. Maurice Hauriou
(1856-1929), an eminent public law
theorist, anticipated the current growth
in services, by considering associations as
an instituting force that generates new
forms of public action. Based on the « idea
of work to be accomplished », this concept
integrates the form into the substance
and practices into values. What is considered
negatively for the external take-over
of association-based investment can thus
be a positive effect of social dissemination
of the work idea in its various forms.

The economy of solidarity cannot be
reduced to activities of associations that
compensate for deficiencies of the social
contract in a liberal regime. Its origins
ensure the multiplicity of its investments :
between Victorian puritanical philanthropy
and French republican-based solidarism,
destinies go different ways. The
economy of solidarity, which is reviving
with the changing social State, is diversifying
still further by bringing the citizen’s
commitment closer to the economic
service. The share capital thus released
builds new productive combinations.

« Restos du Coeur » in Nancy
The « Restos du Coeur » association that
provides food for the needy, bases its
existence on opposite values to the cold
calculation of the capitalist system and
the inhuman anonymity of the big city.
Voluntary workers spare no effort to
integrate an environment in which individual
relations offset relations of exclusion.
Paradoxically, the world’s disenchantment
maintains moral density specific
to humanitarian commitment.

In the world of associations, external
solidarity brings together voluntary workers
in a service dedicated to beneficiaries.
This is the case of the « Restos du
Coeur » association that provides food
for the needy. With internal solidarity,
the association members and their public
maintain a common identity link. This
is the case of the grouping of inhabitants
in a neighbourhood. But in both grouping
formats, individual commitment
requires another internal sociability in
which « being with » is transformed into
« between ourselves ». The intensifying of
interpersonal relations among voluntary
workers of a charity organization, as
among militants of a local environment
association, dynamizes community
action as much as it weakens it.

In 1994, the Berry-Zèbre, a threatened
popular cinema theatre in Belleville, stirred
up a local storm to save it from closure.
The mobilization of associations,
which was initially defensive and festive,
subsequently became professional and
media-staged. The difficulties in reviving
the cinema densified the network of
local initiatives and its association fabric.
On the brink of the 2001 municipal elections,
it looks as though the Zèbre is certain
to be rehabilitated through the association
of various public partners.

The will to participate in local affairs
made manifest by the current build-up
of associations in Paris is in sharp contrast
to the urban social movements of the
1970s. However, today’s commitments
are coming up against the limits of legal
consultation procedures or of avenues
of recourse against some confidential
urban development projects. The presence
of association militants on the
municipal election lists is the outcome,
both logical and paradoxical, of this commitment
to participation.

For more than a century in Lyon, Local
Interest Committees have brought together
citizens wishing to settle the many
problems in their living environment :
drainage, transport, embellishment, etc.
Since the 1960s, these committees,
grouped into a Union, have asserted
themselves as a force of proposition and
mediation that claims to be non-political
and aims to resolve important urban
matters such as the creation of a metro.
The stimulus to create associations,
generated by problems of social exclusion and environmental nuisance on the
scale of both the neighbourhood and
the region, is destabilizing the action
and legitimacy of the Committees.

The workings of neighbourhood committees
in Roubaix show the limitations
of recourse to local citizenship, the leitmotiv
of the Municipal Policy. Community
initiatives are rapidly being transformed
into the provision of services
supervised by public operators. The activities
of associations, which have a rich history
in this city, are being disseminated
into municipal procedures and temporalities.
Some members of local committees
desire space for debate and initiative,
that is less dependent on public policies.

Zebda, a popular music group from the
north districts of Toulouse, has acquired
a national reputation in the commercial
music business. Through the TactiKollectif
association, the group has also engaged
in the municipal election campaign
with some success (14% for the first ballot
of 2001). This novel transition from
cultural to political activity marks the arrival
of the Beurs on the municipal scene.
At the same time, it is changing the terms
of municipal policy at grassroots level.

The associations set up by the heirs of
Maghrebian immigration, after making
a conspicuous entrance onto the public
scene in France in the 1980s, are now
going their various different ways throughout
public space : defence of social
rights at local level, assertion of a community
identity, investment in the cultural
industry, etc. But for these generations,
the association framework
remains a preferential instrument for
the pluralization of cities and citizens
behaviour patterns.

The public authorities and the general
public, faced with increasing daily problems
in the cities of Morocco, are being
led towards dialogue. Existing associations
or local social clubs can often be
feeders or political springboards but do
not solve practical urban living problems.
However necessary they may be,
formal procedures enabling the inhabitants
to participate in development projects
are only a partial response to the
many different situations.

The purposes and practices of associations
working in favour of housing for
the most disadvantaged are being modified
by their legal recognition and their
increasing weight in the social housing
economy. The emergence of this market
segment blurs the original difference
between types of associations. Through
their many actions, a new social and real
estate system is being shaped in which
the project logic, not without its contradictions,
overrides that of the production
of social housing.

Associations between instrumentalization and
innovation. Recent housing reforms in favour of the
most underprivileged give tenants’and
inhabitants’associations unprecedented
importance in production and management
systems. Between tenants and landlords,
associations are thus called upon
to settle insolvency conflicts. To guard
against the risk of being confined to an
unavoidable bridging role, they are extending
their partnering network beyond
the strict domain of social housing.

Associations in the New Towns have
emerged as a local anti-establishment
power base born of the new inhabitants.
The main goal of their challenge or their
participation has been to protect their
local and natural environment against
the impact of large-scale nuisance-generating
facilities. Their political influence
depends on their capacity to durably
maintain a power relationship with local
and administrative authorities while
avoiding insurmountable conflict.

In two comparable European metropolises,
Bristol and Toulouse, the participation
of associations in urban planning
projects is following different
paths. In Bristol, public consultation
procedures are taking corporate participatory
management as their model.
In Toulouse, the mobilization of environmental
and heritage protection associations
is gradually becoming integrated
into local institutions. But in both
cases, a large part of the general public
is excluded from local choices.