The second pillar of the CAP groups together the overall measures orientated on the structures and factors of agricultural production, environment and space management, activities and rural surroundings. It benefits from a specific regulation (RDR: rural development regulation) and a specific intervention fund (EAFRD, European agricultural fund for rural development). However, the close relationship between rural development policy and agricultural policy poses two series of questions: some relating to the subordination of rural measures to the achievement of agricultural objectives, including in terms of compensation, others relating to the pertinence of agricultural levers for the development of rural areas. In the face of this double ambiguity, rural policies, conceived with a view to country planning and regional development, are actually and concretely elaborated and implemented by local and regional authorities according to differentiated modes, which may maintain or even amplify the regional disparities.