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The policy for towns, a contractual policy and a partnership ‘par excellence’, is at one and the same time a skill particularly in the meaning of the Law of July 12, 1999, relating to the reinforcing and simplifying of inter-communal cooperation, as well as a certain capacity to handle such skills, once one looks into the conditions particularly allowing for its most effective application. Thanks to its character shared notably between those attributions proper to the State and to the local authorities, it thus avoids any concept of a package of skills – but this however remains one of the bases for decentralization, as demonstrated by the Laws of 1982 and 1983, and also by the recent “Mauroy report”. This article seeks the reasons for this ambiguity, and for this paradox which the legislators have difficulty in both clarifying and interpreting. This then also leads to some difficulty in determining the responsibilities and financings of the various players, and also in evaluating their actions. The article calls for some clarification of these two essential aspects of the policy for towns.