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Towards a French model of Smart Villages - guide

The guide ‘Smart village, vers un modèle français au service des territoires ruraux’ (‘Smart village, towards a French model serving rural areas’), commissioned by the French National Rural Network, explains the Smart Village approach and aims to facilitate its dissemination across rural France.

Smart Villages

The guide entitled ‘Smart village, vers un modèle français au service des territoires ruraux’  (‘Smart village, towards a French model serving rural areas’), commissioned by the French National Rural Network, aims to explain the Smart Village approach and to facilitate its appropriation by communities as well as its deployment in rural areas.

The guide was produced by the Association for Development in the Network of Territories and Services (ADRETS) in 2022. It is a methodological guide that combines educational and practical elements, including checklists, advice and benchmarking examples.

This document is mainly intended for elected rural representatives and community technicians but also for associations involved in rural development. The guide includes five main parts: ‘Smart Village, what are we talking about?’, ‘Methodological benchmarks’, ‘Resources’, ‘Initiatives and words of actors’ and ‘Lessons’. Fifteen experiences of Smart Village approaches in France are presented in considerable detail.