Direction départementale de l'Equipement et aménagement de l'espace rural

As the Ministre de l'Equipement is the minister responsible for town-planning, one might think that the DDE are concerned only with « towns», rural space being for them only a negative quantity, a « blank» zone not used by the policies they devise. In fact, if specific means of rural planning independent of the Ministère de l'Equipement do exist, the legal means employed by the DDE (in particular the POS) on the other hand, are not specifically connected with town-planning. A DDE, therefore, has responsibilities with regard to country planning that it can discharge only in collaboration with those responsible for farming and the countryside (DDA, Chambre d'Agriculture). This collaboration is all the more necessary that it is impossible to consider separately the problems of the towns and of the countryside.