The success of the Basque Country’s development plan

A long-term study, entitled ‘Pays Basque 2010’, was launched in 1992 on the initiative of the prefect, to maintain the local identity of the Basque Country in a new development project. Its success resulted in the implementation of a planning and development scheme in the Basque Country enlisting all the elected representatives, numerous members of the local population, and State representatives. A development board, chaired by Bernard Darretche, and a board of elected representatives to run the projects were set up. At this time, Jean-Jacques Lasserre was an agricultural trade union activist, the mayor of Bidache, and a councillor for his département. He was the person behind this project. When he became president, he wanted to extend it to the whole département in order to develop social ties there within the regional projects. How was this experience applied and adapted to other areas in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques region, while taking into account their cultural, rural and urban differences ?