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The article analyzes how sectoral boundaries have shifted within the environmental state following the creation of the French Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable development and its regional directorates (DREAL) between 2007 and 2015. Prompted by politicians during the 2007 presidential campaign, this reform was intended to create an integrated bureaucracy by merging together three public administrations in charge of the Environment, Transport and Industry, in order to increase ministerial transversality in the name of sustainable development. Contrary to an essentialist reading of this reforme, based on archival data and interviews with national and regional senior civil servants, we highlight the existence of competing conceptions of transversality and the weight of bureaucratic and professional issues within the creation of the DREALs. In a context of budgetary restrictions, the effort to introduce more transversality was reoriented by competition and alliances between middle managers from various bureaucratic fiefdoms of the State’s administrative and technical corps. The reform has led to the regrouping of management teams, a unified discourse, and consolidated organigrammes within the DREALs. But it has also allowed professional identities, compartmentalization and the need for internal coordination to persist. The changes observed are limited and do not meet the initial objectives of strong transversality and a fully integrated administration of sustainable development.