This chapter presents in a diachronic perspective three sets of policies that can be considered part of an urban agenda in France, namely, urban planning policies, regional development policies and urban constituent policies. Although disparate in their objectives and modes of action, they allow to trace the change in the power relations between urban governments and the central State. Contrary to the image of a highly centralized country that is sometimes used in the international public debate when referring to France, the history of urban policies shows an oscillation in terms of the impetus and capacity of innovation over time. At some point, the central State steers changes in policy-ideas and instruments, but progressively urban governments have also developed an autonomous capacity to define policy-issues and solutions, and in general, urban policies are most often the result of a complex dialectic between the state and urban governments. The chapter also raises the question of the main policy-paradigms informing urban policies in France and discusses the contradictions and political effects entailed by the dominance of competitiveness-driven policy-ideas.