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According to many witnesses, the CDC and the SCIC and its subsidiary companies were not involved in building the “new cities” ( villes nouvelles) in France. Studying the archives shows why these important bodies were kept apart. When the Fifth Republic started, the CDC was a major partner in national and regional development. It helped to create the ZUP (priority urban areas), which was a forerunner of the program for new cities. While launching the Plan for a Greater Paris ( Schéma directeur d’aménagement et d’urbanisme de la Région parisienne – SDAURP) Paul Delouvrier consulted with Léon-Paul Leroy, head of the SCIC. However, in the mid-1960s, the CDC was facing a lot of problems within its own structure, while the policy of high productivity that it had promoted until then was contested by senior civil servants. In 1968, the French government finally gave up on “new towns” and began focusing on the Etablissements publics d’aménagement (EPA). This decision limited the influence of the CDC on town planning. In the following years, the economic policy pursued by the minister of Public Works and Housing ( Ministre de l’Equipement et du Logement), Albin Chalandon, resulted in the removal of the CDC and the EPA. Although the SCET contributed to innovations in architecture and town planning, the CDC felt unconcerned with the building schedules for new towns until the late 1970s and the early 1980s when a new approach to managing France’s public finances brought it back into the picture.