Reg Harman

Philippe Menerault

Alain L'hostis

Public transport in cities and regions, Facing an uncertain future?

Spatial Planning Systems of Britain and France" agencies and local authorities, the links between transport and spatial development, and the administration of public transport. Each section contains a brief review of the British and French approaches and some comparative remarks. A concluding section draws out some key points of similarity and difference.

Introduction

This chapter addresses transport policies in the two countries. Transport is a crucial factor in spatial planning. At its simplest, the quality and speed of transport affects the area within which people can live their lives and obtain goods and services. In turn the shape and scale of settlements has a significant impact on the forms of transport that are used. In consequence changes in transport have paralleled changes in settlement structure, both being driven by improved technology and growth in the economy.

The twentieth century has seen massive growth in mobility levels, with complex travel patterns reflecting dispersed development. This has led to congestion, delay, pollution, traffic accidents, economic inefficiency and social inequity. Public transport services, which can play a crucial role in solving these problems, are becoming ever more difficult to sustain on a purely commercial basis. So transport policies in both countries are changing, with the stated aims of supporting the demand for wider access while constraining the use of motor vehicles. But in practice they have so far had little impact on the demand for ever greater mobility. This chapter outlines the main aspects of British and French transport policies, especially for urban and regional public transport, against this background. The first section reviews the development of major transport policy instruments in recent years.

Following sections consider some specific aspects, including the roles of regional

x.2 The development of transport policy in recent years

British policy has evolved primarily in line with the main themes of the two White Papers discussed below. These in principle apply to all parts of the United Kingdom; in practice there are some real differences. Northern Ireland has a distinct policy regime, largely reflecting serious social unrest experienced over recent decades; most transport is centrally managed by the Province's administration. Within Great Britain, following an Act of 2001, Scotland has its own Parliament, with significant powers, and Wales has a separate Assembly, with more limited powers. Both are now developing policies for the administration and development of transport which differ from those in England. The majority of Great Britain's population lives in England, and in practice most of this review applies primarily to transport policy in England. London also has very different powers.

In France the key document which defines transport policy is the Loi d'Orientation des

Transport Interieurs (LOTI), of 31 December 1982. This act was initially motivated by the need to revise the statutory position of the SNCF but became a document of general application. Its aim as such was to set out a comprehensive legal framework for the organization of transport, covering all modes and all spatial levels, for both freight and passengers. Drawn up under a left wing government by a communist minister, LOTI comprises a flexible framework which rests on establishing public regulation within a market economy. This principle is formalized in the combination of ideas of "right to transport for everyone", "public service", and "freedom of choice for the user". The act envisaged a sharing of roles, between central government and the local authorities on one hand and the public authorities and the operators on the other. Furthermore, Paris, like London, forms a special case in view of its national significance.

British transport policy has changed substantially over the last decade. The Conservative government in power during the 1980s and 1990s pursued two simple policy strands. It transferred the ownership and management of most public transport into private hands, through the Transport Act 1985 (buses) and the Railways Act 1993 (railways). It envisaged road movement as the keystone of transport policy, and so in 1989 published a strategy document called 'Roads to Prosperity', setting out a significant programme for expanding the trunk road network. This brought a substantial reaction from environmental groups and the wider public too, and the government slowly changed its approach to recognise that its policy of 'predict and provide' would not solve problems of access and congestion. The economic downturn of the early 1990s reduced public funds available for road building anyway.

The Labour administration elected in 1997 carried out a widespread consultation on transport and in 1998 published a White Paper 'A New Deal for Transport: Better for Everyone'. This identified the positive benefits of increasing transport but also saw the negative impact, in terms of poor quality of life for many. It set out as key objectives:

• An integrated transport policy is essential, in which transport supports spatial planning aimed at improving sustainable travel, environmental improvement, and education, health and employment policies.

• Public transport should play a greater role in travel and should be improved to attract people out of their cars.

• Good transport planning should happen mostly at local level, providing much better walking, cycling and bus services.

• Improvements to the environment should not mean forcing people out of their cars.

• More sustainable modes for freight movement should be encouraged.

The White Paper was linked to a number of supporting policy documents -the 'daughter documents' -which set out policy intentions for railways, buses, road pricing, and also guidance on the links between spatial planning and transport.

To implement these policies, the government adopted new powers, through the Transport Act 2000. The main changes established in this included:

• Reorganisation of administration of the national railway system, notably through creation of the Strategic Rail Authority to develop and implement a strategy and manage the franchising of passenger services.

• Creation of new powers, processes and duties for local transport authorities to prepare and implement a Local Transport Plan (LTP, covering local highways and bus services, financed largely by government grants.

• Creation of powers and processes for bringing in road pricing and workplace charging schemes.

In 2000 the government also published a plan for investment and action, 'Transport 2010 -The 10 Year Plan', which defined the intended funding for transport over the decade, both capital and revenue. It aimed to encourage capital expenditure by private interests, through Public Private Partnerships. Its aims were to achieve the White Paper objectives through reducing congestion, encouraging higher use of public transport, supporting economic growth and improving the environment. This formed the economic justification for the increased spending on transport, as the government was committed to tight fiscal management.

Reg Harman, Philippe Menerault, Alain L'Hostis in « Spatial Planning Systems of Britain and France"

The new policies and action plans received widespread support. However, there remained some concern about whether the policies could be achieved, while some motoring and business interests considered that the policies would constrain the freedom to travel, and could lead to poorer economic performance. These negative aspects were widely reported in the media. Negative views eventually gained dominance after two key events. One was a campaign against fuel price rises in autumn 2001, when some groups of independent road freight drivers blockaded oil depots; this led government to abandon its petrol tax 'escalator'. Then government declared bankrupt the private owner of the national rail infrastructure (Railtrack plc) and established a 'stakeholder company' (Network Rail) to run it, following a period of rapid increase in railway maintenance costs and growing public concern over four crashes in the London area (even though the total number of casualties was relatively small)

Other indicators also suggested that the new policies were not working: bus service passenger levels and operations continued to decline outside London, the condition of roads remained poor and that of footways declined. Implementation of local authority LTP projects was generally held back by government controls, so that congestion continued to increase while local transport and environmental conditions generally got worse. In response, government issued two more White Papers, one proposing a review of railway administration, the other setting out policies for the other areas of transport.

The second document -'The Future of Transport', subtitled 'A network for 2030'stressed the increased public funding which government was awarding to the transport sector, and set out a series of new initiatives for various parts of the transport sector, aimed at taking forward the principles of 'Transport 2010'. Many commentators saw this as moving transport policy away from environmental and social goals and back towards more road building.

In contrast to Great Britain, French transport policy has not seen any real change since the publication of LOTI. While its application has run into several difficulties, subsequent legal documents have sought to remove blockages rather than restructure it. Two points should be stressed: the difficulty of an intermodal approach; and the problem of interaction between transport systems and decentralization.

On one hand the multimodal and intermodal approach of LOTI has in practice seen little development. On the other hand it is important to note the problems resulting from the telescoping of two separate policy strands: the transport sector and the process of decentralization.

From 1982 the organization of administrative areas was defined as having three tiers, one above the other (the region elevated to be a public authority, the department, and the municipality), linked to the principle that no authority has control over any other. In this framework LOTI allocates to each area level the power of Autorité Organisatrice (AO) for the defined system of public transport. The growth of mobility and the expansion of functions over wider areas meant that the institutional areas became more and more inappropriate. Coordinating transport networks has become more difficult because of the multiplicity of responsible authorities: the French system always tries to maintain the balance between seeking to establish comprehensive networks and strictly maintaining the autonomy of local authorities.

x.3

Regional agencies and local authorities

As discussed elsewhere, England's structure of local administration includes non-elected regional bodies and elected local authorities. The regional assemblies, made up of members from local authorities with some representatives of business and community interests, draw up a regional planning strategy, and this must incorporate a regional transport strategy (RTS). The transport policies in the RTS should support the spatial and land use objectives; they also act as the guiding framework for LTPs in the region.

The action and investment programmes of the regional development agencies (RDAs), which represent mainly the businesses in each region, support mostly development and regeneration projects, but may also cover some transport projects as well.

Greater London has a unique structure, reflecting its size and its central role as a national capital and international finance centre. The Greater London Authority (GLA), In France the institutional structure and its evolution are, for the most part, very different from those of the United Kingdom:

led
• the influence of elected representatives from the different levels of public authorities is dominant;

• the role of central government is declining more and more in terms of funding and of transfer of responsibilities ;

• business interests are not represented in the decision making bodies in the fields of transport and of planning;

• the municipality, as the basic tier, remains the key level in local policies.

However, the strengthening of intermediate levels for planning and operations within the framework of districts and regions forms an element of convergence between the two countries.

In France the municipalities in urban areas, on their own or in groups, can establish a

Périmètre des Transport Urbains (PTU) for public transport; the PTU forms the geographical framework for the Autorité Organisatrice (AO). Within the PTU the AO allocates to a single operator the management of an urban transport network comprising one or more modes of public transport (bus, tramway, metro, etc.). Outside the Ile-de-France, these authorities, unlike those in England, have at their disposal sufficient financial resources of their own: these include local taxes (31%), income from users (20%) and above all the revenue from a specific tax on the salaries of businesses situated within the PTU, the Versement-Transport (VT, 46%). The modest budget share which central government allocated to urban public transport authorities (3% in 2002)

was cut out from 2004. The VT encouraged municipalities to group together in order to have powers over urban public transport, because this tax system could only be set up for levels of population within the PTU above a certain threshold. In addition to the widening of areas, the VT also led to the assembly of groups of municipalities into Syndicats Intercommunaux à Vocation Unique (SIVU), formal associations whose sole responsibility is for public transport. This has contributed to public transport being cut off in its own field of responsibility, supported by funding which separates it from other functions, such as spatial planning.

The reform brought about by the 1999 act on the strengthening and simplification of does not necessarily lead to the integration of sectoral policies, even if it can make it easier. In fact many urban transport authorities do not have their own developed expertise. They can only carry out the legal supervision of the contract with the operator of the system and rely on the latter for defining the transport services to be provided.

Outside the PTUs the départements are, within their own area, responsible for interurban passenger transport. The powers of the Conseil Général, the elected assembly of the départements, cover scheduled coach services, on-demand services and school transport; the latter forms the principal public transport activity at this level. In practice coordination between urban and interurban transport is often poor, and the imbalance between the resources of the two types of authority does not help to integrate them. In addition, the départements have a major role in the management of the road network, and this continues to grow, with transfer of 18,000 kilometres of national roads from 2006.

The regions, which became public authorities through the decentralization act (1982), constitute the third level for organization of local transport. They are responsible for regional rail transport. The annual budget allocated to public transport by the regions forms their second highest item of spending. The transfer of railway services from central government to the regions has increased the disparity of service provision between the regions and has also led to the run-down of inter regional services not on the network of trains a grande vitesse (TGV). Under LOTI it is possible to set up formal agreements establishing the relationship between the responsible regional authorities and one operator: SNCF. However, in a system where central government continues to subsidize rail significantly, the cash flow appropriate to organization on a regional basis was set up only in 2002, following a period of experiment carried out in seven regions. Implementing this regionalization raises several difficulties, including: the scale of investment needed; congestion and allocation of train paths, which raises the issue of infrastructure charges;

the dependence of the regions on the national system of passenger fares; the need to establish expertise at regional level. Furthermore the Loi Solidarité et Renouvellement Urbain (SRU) of 2000 proposed policies favouring the creation of Syndicats Mixtes bringing together different levels of responsible authorities (urban, departmental, regional). In this framework, the regions could better play the role of coordinating the actions of different public authorities. However, although this has been discussed, no applications have so far taken place.

Within the overall national picture the Ile-de-France forms a separate case in terms of both local authority structure and of transport organization. Under a regime which differs from LOTI, central government controlled the authority responsible for urban and regional transport until 2005. The departments were represented on it but it was not until SRU that the region gained a seat on the Syndicat des Transports d'Île-de-France (STIF), which remained under the direction of central government. The latest situation is that the act on "local responsibilities" of 2004 has proposed withdrawal of central government and transfer of the responsibilities for transport to the region. However, process of bringing the Ile-de-France in line with this standard approach is proving difficult. The current difficulties essentially reflect the debate on maintaining central government's financial contribution after its withdrawal from the decision making bodies.

x.4

Transport and spatial development

The However, the formal mechanisms for ensuring that such integration actually happens are in practice very limited. In two tier areas especially, the county council retains its transport powers but no longer has its former powers to prepare the planning strategy;

all spatial planning powers are in the hands of district councils. Furthermore there are also timescale differences. The LDF sets out policies for a 10-year period, and there are no defined periods, so that one local authority's LDF may cover a different period to that of its neighbours. In contrast the LTP is produced for defined 5-year periods. This can make it very difficult to evaluate and fund transport projects to properly reflect spatial planning policies.

While the concern for better integration of transport and urban planning is common to the two countries, the overall structure for putting it into practice follows fundamentally different principles. In England each level of authority is allocated a single power; in France powers in both fields are available at both regional and local level.

In this context, recent French legislation has encouraged planning which links transport and spatial planning on two levels: on one hand, the conurbations, with the authorities responsible for urban transport charged with creating Plans de Déplacements Urbains (PLU), the allocations must be compatible with the PDU, and this can particularly affect the standards for parking provision. The SRU Act however cannot avoid the contradictions which reflect the difficult compromise between network and area. In particular it provides that the joint municipal bodies responsible for the SCOT can take responsibility for drawing up a PDU. While it is satisfactory from the viewpoint of geographical coherence, this provision deprives the organization responsible for urban transport -defined within the PTU, whose boundaries are much smaller than those of SCOT -of the principal mechanism which they have to promote coherence between sectors.

At the regional scale, the linking of transport and spatial planning was, following the first acts of Decentralization (1982), solely achieved through the Contrats de Plan Etat -Région (CPER). In these contracts, of 5 to 7 years length, which set out the agreed choices in terms of facilities, notably transport, central government's decision is dominant. However, the evolution of the planning system has provided the regional tier Through this strategic step the connections between transport and planning are explicitly defined at regional level. However, the regions do not have available all the levers needed to ensure coordination of spatial policies. On one hand the municipalities remain in control of land use planning. On the other hand the requirement for coherence between different levels of authorities is now unbalanced: the SRADT must oversee the

x.5 Public transport provision -railways, buses and trams

Public transport in Great Britain is provided on a basis that is both centrally controlled and yet fragmented. Railways, buses and tramways each have their own regime and set of controlling policies.

The former national railway corporation, British Railways (BR), was totally restructured by the 1993 Railways Act. Despite some major changes (through Acts of 2000 and 2005), the 1993 structure remains largely intact:

• The infrastructure, initially allocated to a new private company, Railtrack plc, is now managed by a non-profit 'stakeholder company', Network Rail, which is responsible for maintaining the network and producing plans for investment in it.

• Provision of passenger services is through franchises, let for periods of 7 to 15 years. Between 2000 and 2005 the Strategic Rail Authority was responsible for letting franchises but it is now the duty of the Department for Transport. The powers formerly held by the PTEs have been withdrawn.

• All rail freight operations are now owned and managed by private companies.

• Regulation of the system, including guidance on the level of funding required for the infrastructure over five year periods, is the responsibility of the Office for Rail Regulation (formerly the Office of the Rail Regulator).

Under the Transport Act 2000 central government created the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) to be responsible for strategic planning for the railway network, the franchising of passenger services, and other functions. The Railways Act 2005 disbanded the SRA, its functions being split between the Department for Transport and Network Rail. There is now no statutory requirement for long term network planning, even though growth in traffic has caused serious problems from lack of track capacity. Network Rail continues to prepare route utilization strategies for groups of lines, a process started by the SRA:

these look to identify the most efficient way to operate the maximum number of trains.

There has been little investment in new infrastructure for many years (apart from the Channel Tunnel Link), and significant increases in national rail capacity appear unlikely for the foreseeable future.

Bus services outside London operated until 1986 under a system of route licences, regulated by each region's traffic commissioners. Most bus companies were owned either by a municipal authority or by the state-owned National Bus Company (in England;

the Scottish Transport Group in Scotland). The 1985 Transport Act removed this regulation, so that most bus services are now provided on a commercial basis by operators. The municipal and NBC (and STG) companies were sold off as individual small companies. A high proportion of most bus services are now run by subsidiaries of four large private corporations: First Group, National Express, Arriva, Go-Ahead. These groups also operate most passenger rail services under franchise. A few medium size independent companies and many very small ones also operate bus services. All three large French corporations (described in a later paragraph) are building up operations in Great Britain.

The PTEs and local transport authorities have powers to provide by contract services over routes which are not served commercially but these are limited by budget considerations. PTEs and local transport authorities may also publicise services and provide bus priorities on their roads. Many places have seen the establishment of bus Quality Partnerships, whereby the public authority cooperates with one or more bus operators over major improvement to a group of routes: the bus operators put new buses on the route, the local authorities provide local infrastructure (priorities at junctions and lights, bus stops), and both groups cooperate over promoting the services.

These powers were strengthened by clauses in the Transport Act 2000. The Act also established powers for Quality Contracts, under which the public authority becomes responsible for the services and lets contracts to operators to run them; to date these powers have not been used. There remains however a serious barrier to operating bus services in an integrated way. Bus service provision is subject to the regulations of the Competition Acts as applied by the Office for Fair Trading (OFT), and these prevent operators from cooperating in any way which involves 'sharing the market', e.g. through agreements over timetables or common fares systems.

London has seen development of both a light metro (Docklands Light Railway) and a tramway network (Croydon) in the 1990s, and expansion is planned. Outside London only one light metro and one older tramway existed before 1990 1 , but since then four new city tram lines have been opened 2 . In 1998 the Government declared a strong interest in seeing more new systems and extensions built; but they insisted that schemes should still be developed by the PPP approach required by the previous administration.

Substantial work has taken place since then to develop new systems and extensions to existing ones, but in 2005 the Government refused to provide funding for them, because costs had risen well above the budget allocated. The promoters attributed much of the increase to the PPP method of funding, with private companies seeking considerable risk premiums, primarily because they were uncertain about revenue, as unregulated bus operators could compete on any routes.

In the field of public transport provision, the French situation differs from the British as much in its structure as in its evolution. The geographical area remains the basis for organizing transport services, whether they are provided by public monopolies or private companies. Furthermore, since the 1980s many local authorities have developed and then implemented guided transport schemes, rail or road.

In France two operators hold a monopoly position on passenger transport: the Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF) for national and regional rail links, and the Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (RATP) for metro and bus services within Paris. The RATP's area extends into the départements in the inner ring around Paris.

Several recent measures have sought to open up these corporations to competitive activity; the extension of RATP's field of interest to provincial and international systems enables it to prepare for the probability of competition in the Ile-de-France.

In the provincial cities, the public authorities do not usually operate their own public transport system. They have to deal with a very limited number of transport companies.

Three-quarters of the systems are in the hands of one of three groups: Keolis, Connex and Transdev, who carry more than 80% of the trips made in urban public transport. Of these groups, two are predominantly owned by public interests: Keolis, created in 2001, following the purchase of VIA-GTI-Cariane by SNCF, and Transdev, subsidiary of the state-owned financial institution CDC. Only Connex, subsidiary of Veolia-environnement (previously Vivendi-environnement), is fully owned by private funds. Since the middle of the 1980s the strategy of the groups has been marked by four common types of development:

• growth based on the emergence of new transport authorities in small cities

• growth through concentration by merging large companies and by buying up family owned companies;

• combining urban and inter-urban transport activities

• an aggressive international strategy, launched by VIA-GTI in 1989 and followed by Connex in 1996. In contrast, operation of urban transport systems in France by foreign companies remains at present marginal.

In addition to the three groups mentioned, the association AGIR, which represents independent operators, plays an important role (9% of urban systems), essentially in small and medium size cities.

Different types of contract between the operators and the responsible authorities are possible, depending on the allocation of risk and its form. However, the situation of oligopoly in urban transport which limits the impact of competition means that the public authorities, who often have limited expertise of their own, have to rely on contracts which limit the industrial and commercial risks of the transport companies.

The development of guided transport systems in French cities has seen a striking evolution since the 1980s. Nantes (1985) and Grenoble (1987) started the wave of new tramways, assisted by an industrial policy underpinned by central government. Seven other conurbations followed suit, and from 'standard' the vehicles became 'modular' and 'personalized' in order to meet the conurbations' objectives of a positive image and affirmation of their identity. In addition to its significant impact on the use of urban transport, the tramway formed a tool to revitalize city centres and to create local centres in the suburbs of French conurbations. The new French tramway is thus both a mode of travel and a means of reallocating public urban space. This enthusiasm shows up in the number of schemes: 17 cities currently aim to gain or develop a tramway system, almost half of all identified systems of guided transport on own right of way. In comparison the development of the VAL has been much more limited, and in France has only involved Lille (1983), Toulouse (1993) and Rennes (2002). The range of technological solutions has recently widened to include new intermediate transport systems, both guided and on rubber tyres. They are considered less expensive than the tramway, and their market extends to smaller cities, but also covers major conurbations wishing to complement their heavy transit system (Rouen or Ile-de-France). Furthermore, schemes are now coming forward to use the concept of the tram-train to address the problems of outer urban areas. Its implementation will however require the establishment of authorities with specific responsibilities, which will experience problems in finding their place in the current institutional landscape.

x.6 Comparison of British and French policies and practices

It is clear from the short reviews of British and French approaches that there are strong differences between the two. Some of these concern matters of detail rather than substance. But some differences are fundamental. The following paragraphs consider those areas where the most significant differences appear to exist.

Perhaps the most crucial is the level at which real influence lies. The form and development of transport affects people and places at local level especially, because most journeys are short distance, carried out as part of people's daily lifestyle. The regional level, in the sense of intermediate level between conurbation and central government, is also important, because regional decisions set the framework for many local ones. Therefore transport decisions need to be taken primarily at regional and local level. This is the case in France, where intercommunal bodies and regional councils both have substantial responsibilities for transport. The French government's role is mainly limited to providing the broad policy framework, and encouraging and guiding authorities to follow this.

The current trend is for this delegation of responsibilities to continue. By 2002 the regions had taken over full responsibility for administering all regional and local rail passenger services. Strengthening the role of the départements in road transport with the transfer to them, in 2006, of part of the national road network forms another example of this. Government is also withdrawing the substantial funding which it has been granting to conurbation authorities for fixed track urban transit systems. This has led to some authorities becoming doubtful over the effectiveness of developing new public transport; especially as ridership is generally not growing and the systems are facing increased operating losses, which the intercommunal bodies must underpin.

In contrast, the British approach is highlighted by strong central control, with government both setting out policies and keeping a tight control on the programmes and funding of local transport by local authorities. It is in effect micro-management from the centre. The LTP offers in principle the opportunity to establish a strategy for the area's transport.

However, its form and contents are closely prescribed by government guidance, and its programmes are approved for funding on a year-on-year basis. This seriously inhibits local transport authorities from acting positively, so they have very little room to achieve real change in their area's transport. This can reduce the morale of both elected members and professional staff and breed cynicism among the public.

The French system has its weaknesses: some of the relationships between municipalities, intercommunal bodies, départements and regions remain unclear; and the links between transport and spatial planning are not fully defined. Because it remains a fundamental principle that no one public authority has control over another, the new planning tools which are aimed at permitting coordination between transport policies and urban development are likely to prove limited in their effectiveness. Thus the coordination of policies is restricted in France by the large number of local authorities which retain their privileges, while in Great Britain the weakness of coordination is due to the centralized control of power and the fragmentation of responsibilities. This is also reflected in the two countries' widely differing frameworks for public transport administration and investment. Broadly speaking, British public transport is seriously fragmented whereas in France it is strongly integrated. This reflects several factors.

In France most local public transport services are franchised out by the responsible public authority. Some measure of fragmentation exists, because different elements of public transport are the responsibility of different levels: railway passenger services for the regions, inter urban coach services for the départements and urban transport services for the municipalities. The three levels do not in practice always work together, leading to poor coordination of services; especially a lack of through tickets.

Within each French urban area, however, full responsibility for provision of public transport lies with the conurbation authority, which represents all the municipalities within the conurbation, and sometimes beyond. The whole urban network is let to a concessionaire for a period of years. The network is developed by the conurbation authority, in cooperation with the concessionaire. This approach produces a network that is fully integrated, in terms of operations, tickets, and general promotion. It also enables the public authority to plan system changes and extensions on an integrated basis; and it is able to fund them because it controls much of its funding, especially through the

Versement-Transport.

This has led to the construction of 15 new fixed track transit systems of various types, in the last twenty years. However, the new peri-urban areas developing beyond the formerly compact cities are generally not well located for public transport. To address this, plans are now being developed in a few places for tram-train services, applying light rail techniques to underused local rail lines.

Local railway passenger services in France are now determined by the regions. In principle, this enables them to decide on which services they should develop in relation to their regional spatial strategy and other responsibilities. In practice, the implementation remains limited by the rise of railway transport costs and by the power of SNCF.

In Great Britain public authorities have very limited responsibilities and powers for public transport. Bus services are operated largely on a commercial basis, mostly by the few major public transport companies. Local transport authorities may contract with bus companies to operate services on other routes but this function is limited by legal and budget factors. Coordination of timetables and joint ticketing are prevented by the competition law. In consequence local services are run on a fragmented basis rather than as a cohesive network.

Very few new light rail transit lines have been built outside London; currently 6 cities have them. Plans for three further systems, together with extensions to the existing ones, have been rejected because their capital costs, under the complex PPP system preferred by government, have risen considerably above original estimates.

Railway service franchises are administered centrally by the Department for Transport, whose main focus is to restrain cost rises, and there has been little real investment for many years. There is no effective link between railways and regional or city planning strategies. Planning strategies such as the Sustainable Communities (major expansion of housing in the regions around London) are not matched by any railway expansion, with even the two cross-London projects (Thameslink 2000 and Crossrail) trapped in uncertain processes.

So public transport in Great Britain is largely controlled by central government and by the transport providers (most of them commercial). Therefore it is very difficult for local transport authorities to have any meaningful input. Thus public authorities at regional and local level are not in practice able to employ transport as a tool of spatial planning or sustainable development. This is further exaggerated in two tier areas, where land use planning is carried out by district councils, who have no real involvement with transport anyway. In contrast, the substantial controls that French conurbations and regions have over their public transport allows them to integrate their planning; especially in the case of new transit systems, which are usually planned to serve the main regeneration and development areas of the city, with the bus network in the area restructured to provide local links, with through travel by integrated ticketing.

In France, in the continued application of LOTI, the tendency is to seek new local contributors to support public transport systems, rather than to leave this primarily to market forces, as is the case in Great Britain.

However, the French system is running up against the problem of scale: the size of responsible urban authorities is too small in relation to the scale of everyday travel and the regional level is too large. In this respect the scale of the British counties where the LTPs are prepared appears more suitable than that of the municipal associations responsible for the PDUs. But this positive factor is rendered ineffective by the loss of the counties' planning powers, which means that they are incapable of ensuring real coordination between planning and transport.

  by the (elected) Mayor, is responsible for strategic planning (led by the London Development Agency, LDA) and for most aspects of transport (led by Transport for London, TfL). But this level of control is to some extent limited. Development of the London Underground system is defined through a long term Public Private Partnership (PPP) contract agreed between the government and private consortia before the Underground was handed over to TfL. TfL has no direct responsibility for the national railway network around London (though this is being sought). TfL does have full control over highways, and over bus services, which are run by private companies under short term franchises for groups of routes. Policies and programmes are set out in the London Transport Strategy, formulated under the leadership of the Mayor.In England the structure and powers of local authorities outside London vary widely, following significant reorganization by successive governments over the last two decades. The major conurbations (metropolitan counties) have no county council.Instead the metropolitan district councils, which are elected authorities, cooperate through joint arrangements over strategic planning for their area, while passenger transport functions are overseen by a passenger transport authority (PTA) representing all of them. The PTA's policies are developed and managed by a passenger transport executive (PTE): a body of permanent staff headed by a small group of directors. A joint team from the PTE and the metropolitan districts manages local transport planning matters, including the LTP. Outside the major conurbations, English local authority areas may have two levels of elected councils or just one. In two-tier authorities the county council is responsible for strategic planning and for transport (together with other functions such as education and social welfare services) and a number of district councils are responsible for local development planning (and some other functions). In single-tier areas a unitary authority has both strategic and local planning and transport responsibilities (and other functions). The main transport tool for local transport authorities is the LTP, established by the Transport Act 2000. This sets out a five year programme for all local transport services and facilities, including highways and public transport. The first LTP was prepared and submitted in 2000, to cover the period 2000/2001 -2005/2006. The second LTP has been prepared during 2005, to run for the period 2006/2007 -2010/2011. The LTP is intended to describe the authority's transport policies and programmes for the five year period, show how these address the government's key transport themes, and set out Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for monitoring progress. It should reflect the regional transport policies set out in the RTS. Implementation of the programmes and projects depends on funding approved annually by government. This is based on an Annual Progress Report (APR) which each local transport authority prepares each year, summarizing its activities and updating funding needs. It also reflects the rating awarded by government officials, following procedures set out in government guidance documents, which change from year to year. As a result, spending is strictly controlled, and local transport authorities have little freedom to coordinate or to negotiate. Apart from London, local transport authorities have little control over public transport.They are required to draw up a bus strategy but they can only fund services to run where commercial operators do not provide them, organize joint tickets in certain circumstances and publish area timetables. They have no real control over rail services, which are planned and administered centrally. They can fund new local infrastructure, such as improvements to bus stations and railway stations, and provide road priorities for bus operation, but the funds they have for these are generally very limited.In Wales and Scotland all local authorities are unitary. In Scotland statutory Regional Transport Partnerships, bringing together the local authorities in each region, now coordinate planning and investment for transport, under the overall authority of the national Transport Executive. (The Glasgow area's unique PTE has been absorbed by the relevant Partnership). These regional groups are now coordinated by a national Transport Executive established by the Scottish Parliament to develop and manage all transport across Scotland.

  British1998 White Paper envisaged close links between transport policy and land use development. Effective spatial planning would encourage the right choices of travel, leading to more sustainable transport. To achieve these objectives, clear links were established through mechanisms at both regional and local level, and were set out in various guidance documents on planning strategy (PPGs and PPSs). Following radical changes to the UK planning system (discussed elsewhere), links between the new local Development Framework (LDF) and the LTP are set out in the Government's Planning Policy Statement 12 (PPS12). This states that 'The integration of transport and spatial planning is central to the development and delivery of effective local development frameworks. Local transport policies need to reflect and support the aims of the core strategy development plan document. Land use planning, in turn, needs to take account of the existing transport network and plans for its development. To deliver integration, local development documents outside London should be consistent with the local transport planning policies of the local transport authority for their area. The local transport plan sets out the local authority's transport policies and detailed investment priorities over a five year period.' It adds that 'Consistency between local development documents and local transport planning policy (as set out in the local transport plan or equivalent) is particularly crucial in shire counties where the district authority prepares local development documents and the county is responsible for transport planning.'

(

  PDU) and the municipal associations responsible for Schémas de Cohérence Territoriale (SCOT); on the other, the regions, which draw up Schémas Regionaux de Transport (SRT) within the framework of Schémas Régionaux d'Aménagement du Territoire. The PDU is an old process, established by LOTI (1982) but changed by recent acts. Thus in 2000 the SRU Act extended the reform of the PDU in the context of municipal coordination renewed by the emergence of Communautés d'Agglomération, and brought together policies on housing, transport and urban planning in the same document to create conditions for better coordination. For the current Plans Locaux d'Urbanisme

  with new tools for coordinating sectoral processes. Thus the Loi Pasqua introduced Schémas Régionaux d'Aménagement et de Développement du Territoire (SRADT) and the Loi Voynet integrated the Schémas Régionaux de Transport (SRT) into them.

  ON OWN RIGHT OF WAY IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IN FRANCE (outside London & Paris regions)

  RegHarman, Philippe Menerault, Alain L'Hostis in « Spatial Planning Systems of Britain and France"

RegHarman, Philippe Menerault, Alain L'Hostis in « Spatial Planning Systems of Britain and France" coordination of the various SCOTs but the latter do not have to follow regional choices, and links between the PDUs and the SRADT are non-existent.

Blackpool Tramway, Tyne & Wear Metro

Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham, Sheffield


Anne Lhuissier

Weight-Loss Practices among Working-class Women in France

Keywords: France, Obesity, Weight-loss, Working-class, Women, Eating habits

It has long been known that obesity is inversely associated with one's occupation category, and women from working-class backgrounds are more widely affected. The aim of this paper is to increase our understanding of the methods working-class women use to implement slimming diets. It uses the results of a qualitative investigation (observations and interviews) conducted among women who participated in a Food Education Programme in the north of France, the region where obesity is most widespread. We illustrate that the women interviewed use three types of techniques (physical, dietary or culinary) in order to lose weight, revealing three different ways of envisaging weight-lossinterventions upon the body (including weight-loss surgery) without any modification of food intake / severely restricting food intake / adapting culinary practices. These differences reflect the effects of class belonging and the subdivisions of that class, combined with the effects of social trajectories. More generally it should be highlighted how some of our interviewees go through a predictable order of different techniques in parallel with their social trajectory. Conceptions of dieting and its implementation can be understood in light of the somatic cultures particular to each subdivision, which reproduce internally the more general differences dividing social groups concerning disease, health and eating habits. Social and family trajectories tend to reinforce these differences, especially when the social mobility of daughters acts as inverse socialisation when they encourage their mothers to adopt their own standards for body weight. As opposed to Great Britain (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs eg) there is in France an important debate among policy makers to know whether one should target messages at particular groups, but for the moment nothing has been decided in this way. The results of our study bring one more evidence that the same policy should not be expected to work universally.

Introduction

In Western societies where a slim body is currently the norm, controlling and managing body weight has become a major issue as much from a public health perspective as an individual one [START_REF] Offer | Body-Weight and Self-Control in the USA and Britain since the 1950s[END_REF]Warde, 1997: 88 sq.). Obese people have long been subject to social stigmatisation [START_REF] Cahnman | The Stigma of Obesity[END_REF][START_REF] Poulain | Sociologie de l'obésité[END_REF]. More recently, they have also been subject to moral condemnation, sparked off by the "war on obesity" -"those who are medically categorised as obese are frequently characterised as being morally weak, lacking in willpower and as seeking a weightloss 'quick-fix' which will enable them to duck the bodily work of diet and exercise", (Throsby 2009: 203; see also Counihan, 1999: chapter 5). However, it has been shown that obesity and practices to control weight are inversely associated with one's occupation category, and women from working-class backgrounds are more widely affected [START_REF] Sobal | Socioeconomic Status and Obesity: a Review of Literature[END_REF][START_REF] Ball | Socioeconomic Status and Weight Change in Adults: A Review[END_REF]. They are more tolerant regarding weight-gain than upper or middle-class women, intervene later to start dieting once a gain in weight has been observed, and receive less social support to have a healthy diet and partake in physical exercise (Jeffery and Simone, 1996;[START_REF] Wardle | Socioeconomic Status and Weight Control Practices in British Adults[END_REF][START_REF] Mclaren | Neighbourhood Level versus Individual Level Correlates of Women's Dissatisfaction: Toward a Multilevel Understanding of the Role of Affluence[END_REF][START_REF] Saint Pol | L'obésité en France : les écarts entre catégories sociales s'accroissent[END_REF]. Based on this observation, various interpretation elements have been put forward. A slender body as a sign of social distinction seems to be more common among the higher social classes [START_REF] Bourdieu | La distinction[END_REF]Mac Laren and Kuh, 2004;[START_REF] Régnier | Obésité, corpulence et souci de minceur : inégalités sociales en France et aux Etats-Unis[END_REF], and the level of education appears to increase the amount of attention paid to media images and health education messages (Mac Laren and Kuh, 2004), and social environment seems to be a vector for body norms [START_REF] Mclaren | Neighbourhood Level versus Individual Level Correlates of Women's Dissatisfaction: Toward a Multilevel Understanding of the Role of Affluence[END_REF].

The aim of this article is to acquire a fuller understanding of the ways to implement weight-loss diets used by working-class women. There is very little literature to enable us to understand this. Qualitative investigations on weight-loss practices mainly concern women from the middle or upper classes [START_REF] Duboys Delabarre | L'expérience du régime au féminin. Une question d'éthique ou d'esthétique ? Résultats d'une enquête en aquitaine[END_REF][START_REF] Chapman | An Exploration of Shifting Constructions of Eating for Weight Control[END_REF][START_REF] Throsby | How Could You Let Yourself Get Like That? Stories of the Origins of Obesity in Accounts of Weight-Loss Surgery[END_REF]. Studies including the working class concentrate mostly upon the representations and practices of healthy eating, without specifically addressing the question of dieting [START_REF] Mckie | Dietary Beliefs and Practices: a Study of Working Class Women in North East England[END_REF][START_REF] Wardle | Socioeconomic Differences in Attitudes and Beliefs about Healthy Lifestyles[END_REF][START_REF] Backette-Milburn | Making Sense of Eating, Weight and Risk in the Early Teenage Years: Views and Concerns of Parents in Poorer Socio-Economic Circumstances[END_REF] 1 . Quantitative surveys do not help us achieve our objective either, for two main reasons. By reasoning on the principal differences between social groups, they do not allow us to understand differences within the working classes. While the relationship to food remains highly distinct between social environments, this is also true within each social group [START_REF] Halbwachs | La classe ouvrière et les niveaux de vie, recherches sur la hiérarchie des besoins dans les sociétés industrielles contemporaines[END_REF][START_REF] Bourdieu | La distinction[END_REF][START_REF] Grignon | Long-Term Trends in Food Consumption: a French Portrait[END_REF]. Above all, however, these surveys rely on the dominant (i.e. medical) conception of slimming diets, essentially based on the modification of food intake [START_REF] Williamson | Weight Loss Attempts in Adults : Goals, Duration, and Rate of Weight Loss[END_REF][START_REF] Jeffery | Socioeconomic Status and Weight Control Practices among 20 to 45 Year-Old Women[END_REF][START_REF] Wardle | Socioeconomic Status and Weight Control Practices in British Adults[END_REF][START_REF] Masson | Le mincir, le grossir, le rester mince. Rapport au corps et au poids et pratiques de restriction alimentaire[END_REF]. Only the questionnaire devised by [START_REF] French | Dieting Behaviors and Weight Change History in Female Adolescents[END_REF] and taken up by [START_REF] Markey | Relations between Body Image and Dieting Behaviors -An Examination of Gender Differences[END_REF] incorporates elements such as the practice of taking emetics or laxatives 2 .

Using a qualitative survey conducted by interviewing and observing working-class women, we demonstrate that weight-loss practices do not always occur through changing one's eating habits. Not only is the connection between dieting and food not always established for the working class, it may even be antinomic. [START_REF] Schwartz | Le monde privé des ouvriers[END_REF] points out that "the question of food is firmly rooted in resisting the establishment. Many women who are advised to go on a diet refuse to stick to it because food is a vested right, a victory over frustration, and giving this up is hard to accept" (p. 479). Assuming a direct link between food and dieting is to deny that food may correspond to other social functions which are in direct competition with the diet.

Method and Materials Used

This article uses data obtained by observing a food education programme designed for obese women in unstable circumstances. It took place in the north of France, the region with the highest prevalence of obesity in the country (14% compared with 10% for French people overall in 2003). Generally, in France, obesity is significantly over-represented in the poorest households in comparison with wealthier ones, and this is even more so for women than for men [START_REF] Régnier | Obesity, Corpulence and Social Status: a French/American Comparison (1970-2000[END_REF]. However, despite these findings, surveys show that it is not those affected by obesity who follow the most diets -this practice is more developed among women from intermediary or higher social categories: in 2003, 7.5% of employees and 6% of lower and higher managers and professionals said they had tried dieting compared with 3.4% of farmers and 3.5% of manual workers -in other words, those less affected by weight problems, who dieted to maintain their figures or as a preventative measure [START_REF] Saint Pol | L'obésité en France : les écarts entre catégories sociales s'accroissent[END_REF].

The food education programme I studied -funded as part of a national nutrition policy -consisted of a series of 12 sessions spread over three months, aiming to give participants the means to be independent in their approach to losing weight. It alternated between nutritional education from a dietician, awareness of the importance of physical exercise from a sports' counsellor and advice from a psychologist on how to combat cognitive restriction. Participation in the programme was free, although certain conditions applied: those interested had to complete two questionnaires beforehand (on health and food consumption, which were also completed at the end of the programme to assess its effectiveness) and provide a letter from their GP in which he or she agreed to the patient's participation (the aim of this request was to involve doctors more personally in their patients' diet). The programme took place in a social centre, responsible for publicising the event widely. However, the women who enrolled heard about the programme though various different means (neighbours, hospital staff, general practitioners and the local press). The survey consisted of participant observation and interviews. Based on the hypothesis that these educational sessions offered a privileged position from which to observe the encounter between two distinct normative systems -that of the organisers and that of the participants -the combination of these two techniques proved to be very effective. In this way, we were able to carry out a precise investigation into the methods of appropriating nutritional advice in a dual context: that of the sessions (interacting with the counsellors) and that within the domestic framework (interacting with household members). I observed the sessions of two groups held between January and September 2003. I was introduced during the first session as someone monitoring the programme to help its functioning, as it was a pilot experiment. I gradually found a way to make myself useful, serving coffee, setting up the hall, fetching equipment and so on. A kind of trust developed, due to the fact that I was always present at each session (while the organisers took it in turns to run sessions), and I ended up playing a liaison role in the participants' eyes. In addition to these observations, 18 individual interviews were held, some with the women who had participated in the two groups, and others with women who had participated in subsequent groups which I had not observed. In terms of domestic and professional situations, the women I encountered were divided between a majority of single-parent households (13 out of 18) 3 and couples. A third's income came from employment (this included retired people), a third's income was from disability allowances and a third's income was from "minima sociaux" (State welfare support). In this article, we shall see that weight is not the determining factor in understanding their approach to and practice of dieting. For this reason, we have not listed their BMI as a descriptive trait of the surveyed population. It is not pertinent as it is not a category familiar to them, and none of them, with one exception, defined herself as obese or overweight.

Findings

An analysis of the findings shows that the women interviewed used three types of techniques in an attempt to lose weight: physical techniques (taking action on one's body), dieting techniques and culinary techniques, and these will be discussed further in the following three sections. The relative distinction between the techniques allows us to take the opposing view to that of literature on the "war on obesity", which presupposes a certain linearity between methods used to lose weight, as [START_REF] Throsby | The War on Obesity as a Moral Project: Weight Loss Drugs, Obesity Surgery and Negotiating Failure[END_REF] has emphasised. The body-weight trajectories and diets of the women interviewed show that their approaches follow less a gradation in their practice (from conventional 'life-style interventions' to weight-loss drugs and finally weight-loss surgery), than a fairly strict separation in ways of doing this. At the same time, the dividing lines between each of these techniques are not totally clear-cut, and we shall examine more closely the profiles of people who oscillate between one approach and another.

Physical Techniques (Taking Action on One's Body)

For some of the women observed, dieting consisted of turning to techniques which act upon the body (rather than through eating habits). Their final goal was surgical procedures. This was situated in the continuity of practices intervening on the body [START_REF] Mauss | Les techniques du corps[END_REF] which they had been using until then to diet. Nathalie was 30 years old and married with no children. She had a problem with her knee, so was partially disabled. She had been dieting for about ten years and claims to have tried "almost everything. I even tried cabbage soup, hyper-protein sachets; I've tried them all (...). That thing with the cabbage soup they show on telly, I did that too. I've done loads of things. I even wanted to buy the special trousers 4 ; I even bought the slimming cream with the roll of cellophane to wrap yourself in. I wrapped myself in it, but it didn't do anything at all! I wrapped myself up for nothing [she laughs]. Then I wanted to buy those clogs they're advertising at the moment, with the 8° heels 5 . I'm tempted, but not tempted because I know they won't work". Having dieted for around twenty years, Naïma, 45, who owned an ambulance company with her husband, explained that she, too, had tried countless techniques and therapies, "I took so many appetite-suppressants and things like that when I was younger (...). Later I tried acupuncture, homeopathy -I think I tried everything". But, like Hélène, 37, unemployed and without qualifications, and dieting for twenty years, they had all come to the same conclusion that "in the end (...), none of it does any good."

Confronted with the ineffectiveness of these techniques, the women interviewed saw surgery as the ultimate and definitive action on the body to rectify their weight problems. Relatively far from the idea of a slimming diet, to them, weight-loss surgery appeared instead as a remedy. This can be understood as a conception of the body and disease typical of the working class, where disease is perceived as an accident which only a "remedy" can cure (Boltanski, 197;[START_REF] Bourdieu | La distinction[END_REF][START_REF] D'houtaud | The Image of Health: Variations in Perceptions by Social Class in a French Population[END_REF][START_REF] Nettleton | The Sociology of Health and Illness[END_REF]. Eating habits are not seen as a mode for prevention [START_REF] Boltanski | Les usages sociaux du corps[END_REF]Régnier, 2009a;[START_REF] Depecker | Les cultures somatiques : rapports au corps et diététique[END_REF]. Although surgery should be accompanied by dietary precautions, this did not appear to be a priority in the interviews. The only connection those interviewed made between disease and diet -the question was asked during the interviewconcerned the unpleasant side effects of their medical treatments on their appetite or digestion 6 . For example, when I questioned Hélène about possible connections between her diet and her health, she replied without hesitation, "Yes, when I eat too much I feel bloated and then I feel guilty."

Similarly, Nathalie was mainly concerned about the effect her medication (taken for her knee problem) had on her appetite or when preparing meals, telling me "Sometimes, with my treatment, it's very difficult to manage, too. So sometimes I can't taste things, sometimes I don't feel like preparing food because I'm too tired."

The relationship with food was also linked to the place food had in their individual and family trajectories. For some, food and, more specifically, the act of cooking recalled earlier, premature learning "on the job", related to family separations; Hélène learnt to cook for herself on her own in the children's home to which she was sent as an adolescent; Fabienne learnt at the age of 13 as a servant in a doctor's house. As a result, the programme's recommendations did not always reach their target when concerning cooking. With my survey, the war on obesity would appear to focus mainly on cooking. In line with the ideas of the national campaign 7 whose recommendations are based on lifestyle advice (healthy eating and physical activity), those running the group spread reasonably general messages more closely related to a healthy diet and home economics than slimming diets. However, this type of message presupposes an interest for home economics that was absent in the women in this group. In particular, they did not have the necessary social and emotional conditions to make a family meal exist as seen in the abundant literature on 'proper meals' [START_REF] Mennell | The Sociology of Food: Eating, Diet and Culture[END_REF]. The women running the group, married and mothers responsible for several children, were accustomed to cooking and spending time on the family meal. Their advice indirectly conveyed a normative approach of marital structure to women who were mostly separated or divorced. In France, the war on obesity also appears to be a class war. The women who participated in this group belonged to the lower strata of the working class. Coming from workingclass families where mothers do not work, they had no qualifications and for all of them, their previous employment was in very low-skilled jobs; Nathalie defined herself as a "former cleaning technician", Hélène as a "home-help", and Fabienne successively as a "servant" and "childcare provider". At the time of the survey, they were receiving income support, and despite being relatively young, (born in the 1960s and 70s 8 ), they appeared to be far from (re)joining the labour market.

Dietary Techniques

Some of the women interviewed saw slimming diets as severely restricting food over a limited period. This is how it was considered by Sandrine, 28, who had an Advanced Vocational Training Certificate in "social and domestic economy", and claimed that "going on a diet means limiting your eating". For Jenifer, 21, educated to A-level, going on a diet implied, above all, knowing "which foods you really shouldn't eat". This conception of dieting is based on a traditional model of nutrition which advocates establishing menus and rations, weighing foods and a series of taboos and forbidden food. This is why the programme did not suit them as the advice given was not restrictive enough. As Sandrine explained during our interview, "I'm here to lose weight, not just to sit here listening and that's it". Colette, 52, an occupational therapist's assistant on a disability allowance, expressed her reservations regarding the effectiveness of the programme; "I think maybe that when it's finished I'll have lost 2 kilos (...) but I wouldn't say 'I'm going to go to it and lose those 15 kilos'". As they did not find what they were looking for in the programme, most of the women left before completing the course. They chose instead to consult an endocrinologist in the hope of being prescribed a personalised and restrictive diet plan, corresponding to their conception of dieting. This perception of dietetics as a discipline for losing weight is characteristic of the intermediate categories. It "is particularly manifest within ascending subdivisions and can be seen as a desire to avert the spectre of relegation through ostentation of the appropriation of dominant standards" [START_REF] Depecker | Les cultures somatiques : rapports au corps et diététique[END_REF]. The women in this group did indeed belong to the upper strata of the working class. Most of them held qualifications and worked in social or paramedical jobs. They were from families of which one member also worked in this sector (many had parents or grandparents who worked as auxiliary nurses).

The notion of relegation stressed by Depecker is important as it enables us to understand partially why these women all left the Food Education Programme before it was finished. On one hand, they did not receive the advice they had been expecting, but above all, they perceived it as stigmatising, referring to the social distance they wished to keep with regard to the obese people who were part of the group. Some of them insisted upon the fact that they did not recognise themselves in the excesses described by other participants. This is how Jenifer described her neighbour during the first session; "Even the girl in front of me, I can't remember her name, who must have eaten -I can't remember what she ate in the mornings, I was shocked. That's it, she ate ham and I don't know what else. Well, she really ate a lot in the mornings -I don't eat breakfast, and it really shocked me". Colette, when talking about the other participants during our interview, made it clear that "They aren't really my kind of people, I have to say", thus emphasising the distance she kept from other members of the group (and controlling the image she wanted to give of herself to the interviewer). In this instance, the Food Education Programme played the opposite role from the one intended -instead of creating a mutual-support group it began to act as a repellent.

Their relationship to work supplies a key to understanding these women's approach to weight loss. As [START_REF] Bourdieu | La distinction[END_REF] has pointed out, a major divide exists in every social class between women who work and women who do not, resulting in fairly differentiated relationships to their bodies. Here, their weight gain was recent. They saw it as an aesthetic problem which needed to be remedied quickly. Their rapid response to this weight gain, characteristic of middle and upper categories, can be understood with respect to their professional trajectories and aspirations. They held or had held very feminised jobs, more highly-valued socially than the jobs held by the women from the previous group, and for some, this illustrated the fact that they were qualified to secondary or higher levels. Having obtained her Advanced Vocational Training Certificate, Sandrine worked for 5 years as an assistant primary-school teacher until her contract ended a year earlier. Unemployed at the time of the interview, she was considering the possibility of taking up her studies again to become a nurse or to fulfil her dream of becoming a midwife. Régine, 44, a former supermarket cashier, and her daughter Jenifer, 21, had no qualifications. When I met them for the interview, they were unemployed but were embarking on a secretarial course with the hope of returning to the labour market. Colette, 52, had always worked as an occupational therapist's assistant until she was obliged to stop working following a lung operation. She received a disability allowance, but missed her job and was being monitored for depression. Their approach to dieting came, therefore, at a critical stage in their professional trajectory where each of them was confronted with problems in entering, maintaining their position in or even leaving the labour market. All of them shared the same type of approach to take themselves in hand by formulating professional, training or retirement projects -personal development which also included modifying their appearance and figure.

Culinary Techniques

Other women expressed clearly in the interviews their concern to lose weight on condition that they did not have to deprive themselves of food. They did not set themselves short-term targets and expressed their aspired clothing size rather than the number of kilos they wanted to lose. Nevertheless, two distinct profiles can be seen among this group; women who were embarking upon a diet for the first time, and those who had experienced "yoyo dieting". We shall return to this distinction in the following section. When they evoked their earlier attempt(s) to lose weight, they all specified that this did not involve "dieting". Karima, a home-help in her forties, said "I don't need to go on a diet. I simply cut out sugar and fat, and started off like that, on my own". This was also the case for Geneviève, 55, a former medical sales rep who was working for the city council at the time of the survey; "I used the Montignac method for six months, but it's not really a diet". By this they meant that for them, the notion of dieting involved a restrictive approach, and they did not perceive their own approach in this way. These statements were the inspiration for this paper -they drew my attention to the fact that the notion of dieting was not socially shared, and encouraged me to continue analysing the interviews from this perspective.

Their conception of dieting was, above all, illustrated by their relationship to cooking. They spent much time cooking, enjoyed eating and had no intention of depriving themselves. The activity of cooking provided the key to understanding their relationship to food and dieting. The importance of cooking may be understood with regard to the close relationships these women, among the oldest of those surveyed, [born between 1935 and 1960] and mostly single (widowed, divorced or separated), continued to have with their children, grandchildren, parents and even ex-partners. In addition to other services (including looking after grandchildren), they continued to take charge of meals at which family members regularly participated, including those who no longer lived at home. For example, Martine, 48, a home-help, lived near her daughter. They regularly invited each other to share meals, and Martine often looked after her grandchildren. Her daughter had a car and took Martine to the shops every fortnight. Geneviève lived alone but went to her son's house each morning to bring him a meal. Marie-Rose cooked most evening meals for her husband and the two children still living at home, meals at which her elder daughter often joined them with her two young children, whom Marie-Rose looked after. Food served as intergenerational transmission and enabled the continuity of relationships between family members, especially when they were no longer living under the same roof.

With regard to cooking, the women in this group evoked the culinary legacy of their mothers or grandmothers, both in their taste for cooking and in their culinary repertoire. While some of them agreed in thinking that their repertoire was outmoded in terms of nutrition, they claimed to have managed to reconvert to a type of cooking more in line with dominant nutritional standards. For example, Martine explained, "So for years I cooked with butter like my grandmother used to. (...) he [the family's doctor] told me 'you've got to stop using butter' (...) so I used margarine, or he told me to use olive oill." It was also through cooking that they managed to reappropriate and implement some of the information they received during the sessions. Geneviève explained that it was through cooking that she managed to incorporate the information from the Programme into her eating habits, integrating "tips", methods and recipes. She thus immediately adopted the recipe for "light" béchamel sauce, "for example in the winter, with leeks -instead of making a béchamel sauce with milk, you add a little cornflour into the juice from cooking the leeks and stir it, and it's true that makes a very good béchamel sauce". Cookery was the principal vector for incorporating nutritional advice. When they turned to the slimming market, this essentially involved purchasing cooking products -special equipment 9 from Weight Watchers and "healthy" cookery books. Some of the women had worked in customer service jobs as medical sales reps or product managers in supermarkets, and this could be observed in their consumption of techniques and body care products, more often the prerogative of higher social classes [START_REF] Boltanski | Prime éducation et morale de classe[END_REF].

Discussion

The three types of techniques (physical, dietary and culinary) highlighted in this article thus reveal a certain number of differences in the way in which the women envisaged weight loss -taking action on one's body (including weight-loss surgery) with no modification of eating habits / strictly limiting food consumption /adapting culinary practices. The three techniques translate in different ways of turning to the slimming market -purchasing products to apply to the body or ingest 10 / consulting a doctor / purchasing cooking utensils and cookery books. They also shape the different relationships within the group and towards the Food Education Programme -perceived as a mutualsupport group and used with a view to surgery / rejected as perceived as stigmatising / perceived for what it was -a support.

The three techniques were informative of the different relationships to their bodies, health and food. They may be understood in the light of the social qualities of the women interviewed, who reproduced on their own levels a more general difference between the somatic cultures pertaining to the working class and higher classers. As shown in the work of [START_REF] Boltanski | Prime éducation et morale de classe[END_REF][START_REF] Boltanski | Les usages sociaux du corps[END_REF], the working classes' use of treatment is of a curative type, and this is how the request for surgery should be understood here. It is required to correct the human body and the weight "problem" with which these women are confronted. Those from higher social classes, on the other hand, consult earlier and more frequently as a preventative measure. Doctors are there to provide "lifestyle guidelines", in other words, to give advice which may, above all, prevent disease. These two social definitions of health and disease can also be applied to food: "Recognising that there are foods which preserve good health and others which gradually affect it adversely, in a certain way breaks down the boundaries, apparently well-defined for the working class, separating health and disease, by accepting the progressive rather than brutal and accidental transition from one state to another" (Boltanski, 1969: 97). Class belonging, however, does not enable us to understand all the practices connected with dieting. Some of the women in the survey did not fit into this pattern of explanation. In the next two sections we shall demonstrate that in order to understand the different relationships to implementing an approach to weight loss, it is necessary to take into account the effects of social mobility and family relationships.

Class and Social Mobility

Mac Laren and Kuh ( 2004) have demonstrated the way in which studies of social status in connection with satisfaction with one's body weight have concentrated on the subjects' current social status without taking into consideration either the family's original socio-economic position or social mobility during the subjects' lifetime. They concluded, notably, that there was no link between midlife body esteem and the adult or childhood social class. This investigation suggests that this relationship should be examined more closely. The case of Naïma provides a very interesting example. Naïma was from an immigrant family from Algeria, aged 45 and married with two children. Her dieting techniques changed along with her upward social mobility as she adopted the techniques and (body) values of the group of which she became a member. The history of her body weight trajectory is distinguished by a period before her marriage, when she worked in a factory. Without qualifications, she gradually rose through the ranks. During this first phase she tried out, from the age of 16, the various physical techniques and therapies mentioned in the first section of this article. She then entered a 2 nd phase, marked by rapid social ascension related to her marriage to a civil engineer. She stopped working and began to consult dieticians and nutritionist doctors, and started to attend Weight Watchers meetings, through which she managed to lose weight. At the time of the interview, she and her husband were running an ambulance transport company 11 . Despite her knowledge of nutritional rules and her applying them to her everyday eating habits, she could not lose weight and hoped to undergo surgery. This is the main reason for which she joined the Programme, on the advice of the surgical team. The successive mobilisation of diverse dieting techniques thus appears to echo her ascending social trajectory. In her case, resorting to a surgical procedure does not come under the category of our initial pattern. Among the candidates for surgery, however, Naïma was the only woman who underwent the operation. Her example would seem to give credence to criticism regarding the moral war on obesity, suggesting that the operation is a reward for those who follow the established rules 12 . Indeed, progressively throughout her experience of dieting and her social ascension, she moved away from her former beliefs about "dieting" as a means to slimming to knowledge about healthy eating as a more appropriate way to control her weight [START_REF] Chapman | An Exploration of Shifting Constructions of Eating for Weight Control[END_REF]. This is how she described what she had learnt with Weight Watchers: "Actually, it taught me to eat properly; it's a diet-well, I shouldn't really call it a diet anymore, but eating habits which I really appreciate because it's really about eating properly over the long term." She appropriated the recommendations after an active approach experimenting and acquiring knowledge [START_REF] Régnier | Le goût de la santé. Figures de réception du régime et des recommandations nutritionnelles[END_REF].

The case of Martine brings into play the question of intergenerational mobility. We have already discussed Martine in relation to culinary techniques. She worked as a home-help and her mother had been an auxiliary nurse and her father a workman. During the interview she talked a lot about her daughter Ève, with whom she had a very close relationship. Ève, 30, was an executive in an IT company. This represented significant upward social mobility, establishing her as a model for her mother, in particular with regard to the question of eating habits and weight control. Being slim was an essential value for Ève, who thus conformed to the standards of the group of which she was a member and which distinguished her from her original group. We discovered from Martine that Ève watched her figure. After having dieted with Weight Watchers the previous year, she regularly went to a sports club; "She went for a while because she'd put on weight -she weighed 75 kilos and didn't feel good about herself (…) she had a complex about it, but she'd gone from a size 12 (UK sizes) to a size 16 and she couldn't stand it. Now she's a size 10, and she still weighs 63 kilos (…). She wouldn't wear a swimming costume anymore." The pressure Ève put on her mother to watch her weight was a driving force and a support in Martine's approach. It was Ève who persuaded her to enrol in the Food Education Programme; "And one day my daughter said to me 'well, haven't you got in touch with the association yet?'". She had a major influence on regulating Martine's eating habits, in the form of inverse socialisation. She persuaded her mother to pay attention to her eating habits and transmitted the idea of watching her weight, her knowledge and "culinary tips" such as steaming vegetables and using Weight Watchers' utensils for fat-free cooking. This example of Martine and her daughter does not only indicate the positive effect of the daughter's social mobility on the mother's nutritional standards. This model is made possible by the complicity between the two women. We encountered other women whom the upward social mobility of their children led, on the contrary, to the breakdown of relations between them. In this instance, the conflictual relationships had negative repercussions on culinary practices and the relationship with food and body weight.

Marital Status and Family Relationships

It is accepted that family trajectories, particularly changes in marital status, can affect body weight [START_REF] Sobal | Marital Status, Fatness and Obesity[END_REF][START_REF] Sobal | Marital Status Changes and Body Weight Changes: a US Longitudinal Analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Lewis | Understanding Health Behavior Change among Couples: An Interdependence and Communal Copping Approach[END_REF]. [START_REF] Sobal | Marital Status Changes and Body Weight Changes: a US Longitudinal Analysis[END_REF] have shown, notably, that marital trajectories involving separation or widowhood are associated with weight loss in men but not in women, and they recommend examining more closely "the question of the link between changes in marital roles and body weight" (p.1552). A qualitative approach enables these general trends to be clarified.

In the account of her weight fluctuations, Muriel, 54 and divorced, a former home-help who had been living for several years with a disability allowance, revealed her entire history. During the interview she described the variations in her weight, superimposing the chronology of her body weight history with that of her family history. "At 12, when I went on my first diet, I weighed 55 [kilos], afterwards when I got married I went back to 75; later I lost two little boys and I must have weighed at least 100 kilos. Then I had my daughter and I got even fatter, when I arrived in L**** I weighed at least 130 kilos. Then I slimmed down (…). Then I put on weight again. Then my mother died and I got thinner. Then my father died and I was eating almost nothing. And I felt really bad about myself -that's when I went through a really bad depression. And now, well, I think I'm a bit better as I've put on weight again". Her account points to two periods. The first, her youth, in which she describes her weight in kilos as it follows the developments of her life -marriage, pregnancies and the death of young children. The second corresponds to her life as a divorced woman, living alone with her daughters; separation, moving house, the death of her parents and depression. Here she no longer describes her weight in kilos but in clothing size (which could be interpreted as a sign of modesty or as a sign of less medical monitoring and a less strict observation of her weight). Unlike the example of Martine described earlier, her relationship with her elder daughter, aged 33, did not motivate her to watch her figure. They did not have a close relationship, even though Muriel looked after her grandchildren on a regular basis. "My elder daughter is 5'9", and weighs 130 kilos. She never says how much she weighs, but I can see she's a bit like I was. She's a size 30. I told her she should 'be careful', but she goes 'Oh, I'm fine, I'm not diabetic or anything.' She's young, she's only 33".

The example of Muriel reflects numerous other situations revealed in interviews where fluctuations in body weight depending on family incidents were not offset by the intensity of the women's relationships with their children. In the "Culinary Techniques" group, with similar social and family trajectories, positive or negative relationships with children, particularly daughters (who differentiate themselves, or do not, by their social mobility) help us understand approaches to weight loss. Beyond social origins, these examples show that other criteria come into play, which only a qualitative approach can bring to light. Using case studies, this involves uncovering more general characteristics which could contribute to the understanding of anomalies in body weight. This investigation would appear to show the prevalence of the medical conception of dieting, based on modifying everyday eating habits. This conception tends to impose a practical framework which may, in certain cases, be opposed to the function and social implications of food for diet candidates. For working-class women, this means denying that food is a vested right which conflicts directly with the principle of restricting food in order to lose weight. The study shows that these differences reflect the effects of belonging to a social class and subdivision of that class, combined with the effects of social trajectory. More generally it should be highlighted how some of our interviewees go through a predictable order of different techniques in parallel with their social trajectory. These conceptions of dieting and its implementation can be understood with regard to the somatic cultures particular to each subdivision, which reproduce internally the more general differences dividing social groups concerning disease, health and food. Social and family trajectories tend to reinforce these differences, especially when the social mobility of daughters acts as inverse socialisation when they encourage their mothers to adopt their own standards for body weight. As opposed to Great Britain (Defra eg) there is in France an important debate among policy makers to know whether one should target messages at particular groups, but for the moment nothing has been decided in this way. The results of our study bring one more evidence that the same policy should not be expected to work universally. 1 I will not cite here the huge amount of literature relating to commercial groups such as Weight Watchers. Most articles address how these organisations are run rather than how dieting is managed once the participants have returned home; neither will I discuss the countless surveys and studies on poorer households' eating habits, as they respond to specific questions which differ from the mines. 2 However, used to identify deviant behaviour with regard to teenage eating habits, this does not necessary apply to the population as a whole. 3 According to the National Institute for Statistics and Economics Studies, a single-parent household includes a single parent and one or more unmarried children (without children of their own). 4 Type of calf-length trousers made with special material which is supposed to encourage perspiration and drainage.

5 Shoes, the heels of which are angled in a way that is supposed to work essential muscles to hone the figure. , 1993), working-class women in the North East of England made an immediate connection between health and eating habits. While this was not the case for the women I met, they could, howerver, accurately determine which foods were good and which bad for their health. Since 2001, a policy of nutritional health has been in operation in France to encourage physical exercise and healthy eating habits, notably with the campaign recommending "5 fruits et légumes par jour", very similar to the British "Five-a-day" campaign. 8 This age group is relatively young in comparison with the women interviewed in general. Could this be linked to selection with regard to criteria for weight-loss surgery, or simply to their presence in the marriage market? This enables food to be cooked without adding fats. 10 These are products to wear or apply to the body, or ingest in liquid or solid form. They are not foodstuffs, and thus differ from so-called "light" products such as yoghurt or biscuits which are eaten during a meal. 11 Her autistic son went to a special school every day, several miles from their home. In the course of the interview, she explained having set up this business as essentially to supervise these journeys and the (road) safety of their son.

6

  According to McKie, Wood et Gregory (

  7

  9

But could this not merely be a guarantee for doctors that there will not be post-operative complications?

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank everyone I met within the framework of the "Changing for the Better" Programme for the warm welcome they always gave me; I would also like to thank M. Dubus, P. Hincker and M. Romon for their help and support throughout this survey, L. Haroutunian for her assistance with my bibliographical research and Lucy Lyall Grant for her translation. My thanks also go to Claude and Christiane Grignon and to Alan Warde and jefeery Sobal for their comments on the earlier version of this paper. I was able to carry out this work thanks to INSERM funding on the theme "Precariousness and Obesity" (Research Grant Convention RRC-03-01). It was the subject of an in-depth analysis within the scope of ANR-Aliminfo 2008-2010 funding.


First results on inducing quiescence in Trichogramma chilonis development

Elisabeth Tabone, Hong Do Thi Khanh, Etty Colombel, -Goebel R., -Roux E.

To cite this version:

Elisabeth Tabone, Hong Do Thi Khanh, Etty Colombel, -Goebel R., -Roux E..

  First results on inducing quiescence in Trichogramma chilonis development. 7 ISSCT Entomology Workshop, Apr 2009, San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina. 1 p. hal-02815945