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Public hospitals have several principals. Each of them set them objectives. They have meanwhile to increase their productivity and revenues while contributing to restraint the spendings of the public body (assurance-maladie) in charge of their financing which constitutes its revenues. Besides, their supervisory bodies ask them to improve their efficacy and their efficiency; at the same time they are under close public scrutiny through the media. This article shows that to each objective set corresponds an ad hoc accountability relationship with the principal. But the multiplicity of relationships actually only reflects the complexity (and the possible contradictions) of the objectives.