Variations in rural development: a comparative analysis of the application of the Rural Development Regulation Framework in France and the Netherlands

This paper reviews the ways in which France and the Netherlands applied the European Rural Development Regulation Framework during the programming period 2000–2006 by examining the two cases and mapping out the main lines of their respective trajectories. It is based on institutional understanding of the policy-making process. The Dutch application was shaped essentially by a nature conservationist view of the countryside, whereas France had a predominantly farmer-oriented implementation. These variations are obviously due to the differences in the national issues at stake, but also to the political clout of the agricultural sector. In the Netherlands, a small and densely populated country in search of space for ‘nature’, farmers have to deal with a rurality made of other claims, whereas in France the farmers have managed to maintain an agricultural countryside.