Pôles de compétitivité : enjeux et interrogations tirés des expériences des districts industriels et des clusters

The decision, in July 2005, of French government to create « poles de compétitivité », can be understood like through an old and fertile research tradition, initiate by works of A. Marshall. This tradition has developed and enriched by notions of « industrial district » or « clusters ». Encouraged by more recent works of Porter (1998), national volontaries policies, aiming to create nationals competitives advantages by the construction or stimulation of entrepreneurials dynamics, have been initiated. However it is important to question elements and hypotheses of this volontarist policy as well as foundations of the performance of the clusters and conditions of their implementation. Thus, after a literature review where we put in obviousness elements fastened to the industrial district performance and clusters (and more largely to phenomenon of economic agglomeration), we questionned the proximity between these analyses and the idea of French competitiveness poles. Through various strategies we underline the main characteristics of this new conception of clusters.