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This paper deals with metropolization in France and the handling of this issue in the December 16, 2010, territorial reform. City-related issues, and, beyond that, the reform’s intercommunal cooperation aspect, are among the least conflictual aspects of this process—which the Left declared it will repeal in 2012 if it wins the elections. However, this does not mean that there is nothing at stake in relation to this issue. The law of December 16, 2010, addresses issues that have already proven controversial. It highlights the reservations, particularly in metropolitan areas, with which the Chevènement law of July 12, 1999, was met. This now-familiar law proposed a more diffuse yet institutional approach to metropolization, providing for the establishment of “ communauté urbaine” and “ communauté d’agglomération.” The author recalls the grounds for the reservations expressed; and goes on to look at how the two major mechanisms developed in this new framework ( métropoles, pôles métropolitains) provide, perhaps not a response, but at least a new phase in the French approach to institutional metropolization.