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In France, qualitative research is characterized by the historical use of content analysis. This technique brings together very different approaches that are not very explicit and are sometimes confusing. The qualitative data analysis approach originating in the Anglo-American context has just appeared in France. It differs strongly from the orthodox methods in practice in the French context. The major difference lies in the aim of theory building, the framework of grounded theory. Researchers build a categorization of the concepts emerging from field transcriptions. On this basis, they can adopt a strategy related both to the discovery of in-depth categories and to the integration of their properties (for example the quantification and qualification of the links between concepts). The work of analysis and theory building is a strongly internalized process of innovation compared to the French one of content analysis.