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RésuméIn a context of redefinition of the welfare state’s capabilities and ways of intervention in matters of local planning, the concept of empowerment seems particularly suitable to question current local economic development reorganizations. It is used here to grasp the emergence, the collective mobilization and the involvement of French «solidarity-based economy» activists in public policies. These activists who assert inclusive and participative methodologies of intervention and organizational rules intend to promote the recognition of users’ experiences in the public sphere. In a context of apparently more open decision-making process and of public action territorialization, they hope to contribute to the economic and social redevelopment of their territory of intervention while trying to influence public policies. In spite of a real process of legitimization, the empirical analysis of such an attempt in rural environment shows its numerous limits, related to the evolutions of governmental agendas as well as to the permanence of closing down logics in the policy making process.