The Europeanization of France has accelerated reforms of French government and politics, and stiffened resistance to such reforms among public opinion and political elites. This article first evaluates the concept of Europeanization as a factor of change in comparison with other endogenous and exogenous pressures on French governance and public policy-making. It then systematically analyses the changes and reforms undergone in French decision-making and policy-making processes in connection with France's membership of the European Union. Finally, it evaluates the capacity of the current (1999) French political leadership to manage Europeanization in a context of instability in the French polity and in French society. The article contributes to the growing literature concerned with political strategies for the domestic management of European integration.

An evaluation framework with five criteria is used to appraise smart city indices. The Cities in Motion Index from IESE business schools has the best performance. Context-sensitive measurement should be emphasized to ensure fair assessment. Two smart city concepts (big data policy, sustainable smartness) are suggested. Nine categories in terms of hard and soft domains for smart city index are proposed.

(1999). Political leadership in the new urban governance: Britain and France compared. Local Government Studies: Vol. 25, Renewing Local Democracy? The Modernisation Agenda in British Local Government, pp. 98-115.

This article explores the relative influence of policy sectors, political institutions, and urban contexts on the operation of contemporary governance. The research compared the membership, structure, governing capacity, and change of local economic development and secondary education policy networks in four cities: Lille and Rennes in France and Leeds and Southampton in the United Kingdom. The main finding is that the type of policy sector mediates the impact of political institutions. There are strong differences between French and British education policy networks but similarities between the economic policy networks. There is variation by city in economic development networks but much less in secondary education. The implication of the findings is that some sectors, such as economic development, tend to be similar across nation-states and permit subnational variation, whereas others retain strong country differences and maintain intrastate uniformity, a finding that is consistent with the longevity of state traditions. In the transition from government to governance, institutional, sectoral, and urban processes become contingent on each other and on their contexts.

Rather than weakening regime theory, comparative analysis illuminates its central theoretical insights. The cases of Leeds (United Kingdom) and Lille (France) show cities in contrasting geographical, cultural, and institutional contexts developing regime like local polities through business participation in a wide range of public-sector decisions. The five special noninstitutional factors promoting regimes are local business ownership, business integration, large metropolitan context, and economic advantage or disadvantage. The distinctiveness of these cities in their countries is an indication of the degree of policy learning and capacity generation that has taken place.