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Alors que les aménagements réalisés par la Compagnie nationale du Rhône étaient censés les en protéger, des communes riveraines du fleuve Rhône ont subi une inondation en 1990. Aujourd’hui réunies dans un Syndicat du Haut-Rhône devenu porteur d’un territoire de développement très actif, elles font de cette catastrophe naturelle le point de départ de l’histoire de ce syndicat. La recherche a montré que cette version officielle de l’histoire ignorait l’essentiel, à savoir que, depuis des décennies, ce tronçon du fleuve était l’objet d’un investissement cognitif considérable de la part des scientifiques de l’Université de Lyon, jusqu’à ce que, relayés par des experts-militants, ils parviennent à le faire choisir comme terrain d’expérimentation d’un programme de restauration écologique et hydraulique. C’est en se saisissant de ce programme que le Syndicat du Haut-Rhône a su se transformer en un acteur du développement.

From a scheme of ecological and hydraulic restoration to the formation of a political force : the case of the Upper-Rhone in FranceAn ecological and hydraulic restoration programme was launched in 2001 on a section of the French Rhone upstream of Lyon. Two research teams, one specializing in life sciences, the other in social and human sciences (SHS), were charged with assessing the effects of the programme to highlight the changes that occurred in the relations between the rivers and the human collectives living along them. This article reports on the results of the SHS team based on a dual approach – consideration of the local situation and of the programme chronology. The research showed rapidly that the main effect of the programme had been the establishment in 2003 of a Syndicate of the Upper-Rhone, which become the leading actor of a development centring around the river for the waterside municipalities situated on the borders of the three departments concerned. But the main reason underlying the location of the programme on this section of the river was that for decades this section had been the target of considerable cognitive investment by scientists from Lyon University. The arguments developed, relayed by expert activist ecologists, were able to convince the authorities to select it as one of the experimental sites for a new sustainable management of rivers. By uniting the municipalities around this programme, the Upper-Rhone Syndicate established itself as a valid interlocutor to cooperate in this management.