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This article highlights the role of certain local managers in the political construction of metropolises based on the study of French case studies. These administrators and technicians coordinate actions involving several institutions (territorial administrations, public institutions). Situated in the political sphere they can be classified in three categories: inter-municipal regulators, territory inventors and public action initiators. They occupy a gatekeeper ( marginal secant) position and develop their scope of action by relying on various resources: mastering the rules of the game; territoriality; “sectoriality”. The metropolises they co-build can be considered as procedural because they proceed from the approximate search for possible regulations from these three types of resources.