Public foresight exercises at an intermediate level: the French national programs and the experience of Bordeaux

The article aims at describing an experience of technology foresight at the regional level. That experience was built upon previous national (and inte rnational) foresight studies. It is possible to analyse the institutional p rocess of such a project in a global context, and also to draw some conclus ions on the possibility and usefulness of articulating different geographic al levels. The experience enlightens the notion of 'intermediate level' in process of foresight, assessment or policy evaluation. Our study gives good confirmation of the fact that public technology foresight studies are ofte n more valuable as a process of communication, network building and collect ive learning than for their results. The choice of the operators, their leg itimacy and the right timing proved also to be crucial aspects for the succ ess of such programs.