France has a very ambitious environmental-policy agenda, aimed chiefly at cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions but also at dealing with local air and water pollution, waste management and the conservation of biodiversity. The laws that followed the Grenelle de l'environnement encompass policy...

France has a very ambitious environmental-policy agenda, aimed chiefly at cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions but also at dealing with local air and water pollution, waste management and the conservation of biodiversity. The laws that followed the Grenelle de l'environnement encompass policy...

This article deals with the Local Agri-Environmental Schemes (LAES), the French contractual policy instrument within the European Rural Development Regulation (2007-2013), designed to improve water quality within priority watersheds. The paper is structured in three parts. The first one focuses...