Far from the idealized images usually conveyed on the subject of the LEADER program, which is often promoted for its innovative and territorialized character, the ex ante and intermediate evaluation studies carried out in the Auvergne and Burgundy regions have revealed a system that is still torn between rural and agricultural development and confronted with bureaucratic management. This is due to the restrictive framework of European and national co-financing as well as an increase in the professionalization of project liaisons. The evolutions are not only the product of features unique to this program, but also of a general tendency towards defining rural development by default and in reference to urban areas. The reasons for this can be institutional (with the low recognition of “Pays”), economic (development of the residential economy that consists in releasing the flow of urban wealth in rural areas), and sociological (broadcasting more centralizing representations).