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In France, the involvement of local actors – local authorities and employers – in regional economic development participated from the 1950s to economic expansion policies. Falling within the wider framework of regional planning, they were institutionalized since 1954, also gathering representatives of devolved administrations and trade-unions’ delegates. The region of Saint-Étienne, a then-shrinking industrial district, presented a case study of such a mobilization, corresponding to the institutional chronology. Its main specificity implied the conduct of first operations not by local politicians and employers, but the préfet of the Loire département. Despite of the efforts of a few social reformers (inspired by the principles of social Catholicism and animating the Comité d’action pour la région stéphanoise which emerged as a real think tank in 1954-1955), the refusal from the majority of local employers to accept a more modern approach to economic issues, led to an increasing discrepancy between both categories of collective actors, and ultimately resulted in the relative failure of this attempt. Its continuity, the Comité d’expansion de la Loire, led in a statu quo ante with regard to innovation, although several newly-created institutions allowed to change the local expertise on the economic situation of the region.