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This article provides an overview of French urban sociology based on a thematic analysis of a corpus of 405 articles published in 8 journals between 1990 and 2018. It shows that urban sociology is ultimately weak at its core. Work in the field is largely produced by non-specialists, involves little self-questioning, and does not tend to build on previous work. Although it seems to weaken in contact with other disciplines and public debate, it actively participates in central debates in the discipline, particularly those on social classes. The discipline is mainly fueled by a large number of works that follow an exploratory approach inspired by anthropology. Paradoxically, the trends that threaten its coherence and cohesion are also what give it its own dynamism.