[en] From the start, the cooperation between power companies and local authorities was unavoidable and necessary. Cities, holding the licensing authority, could achieve a kind of power to direct the electrical economy - a role that was reinforced when electricity was acknowledged as a public interest service - while they were, as potential public lighting consumers, a business partners to emerging power companies. However, not many local authorities handled electricity management directly in France. There were ideological and legal restrictions, until 1917, or even 1926, to direct management company incorporation. Yet the financial factor - the issue of the cost of setting up or taking over the operation - was also important : there may be like a 'city optimum' that very few cities could play. Undoubtedly, failing private investors, there were a little more city or inter-city companies in rural areas, after the Government decided to subsidize them in the Twenties. By the way considering the logic of the electrical economy, city companies, even in major cities, had to count on private producers to ensure most of their supplies. In the Thirties, the Federation Nationale des Collectivites Concedantes et Regies acted as a pressure group to defend the cities' interests against power companies that were mainly engaging in a relationship with the Government. (author)