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Very early on, the stakeholders in France’s so-called ‘new town policy’ travelled abroad on assignments to provide technical support to local stakeholders: the Paris Region’s Institute for Urban Development and Planning, from the late 1960s, and the Public Establishments for New Town Development, through a special economic interest group formed in the early 1980s. Continuing a long tradition of importing French town planning expertise, the Buenos Aires region was one of the first destinations for these organisations’ assignments abroad. However, the paradoxical nature of the two main assignments in Argentina, in light of the characteristics of France’s new town policy, raises questions about what is actually exportable and about the new town policy per se.