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In France, the technopole concept was part of the vast policy of decentralization that began in the 1950s and continued until the decentralization acts of the 1980s. The first attempts to create technopoles emerged in the 1970s, as in the case of the Meylan innovation and scientific and technical research zone (Zone d’Innovation et de Recherche Scientifique et Technique, ZIRST) in the Grenoble area and, especially, Sophia Antipolis near Nice, which remains the most striking French example. However, it was during the following decade that technology parks appeared all over France:

Following the decentralization of 1982, the idea that development and coordination actions can promote the constitution of technological poles, and thus the economic development of cities or regions, spread among local elected officials, who were strongly encouraged in this by companies specialized in the development of business parks (Grossetti 1995, p. 3).

The state became involved in this development, initially through DATAR (Délégation interministérielle à l’aménagement du territoire et à l’attractivité régionale), and then gradually a multitude of operators emerged: mixed syndicates, associations, mixed economy companies, etc. As a result, in the 1990s, several works on technopoles were published, in an attempt to decipher the phenomenon and categorize the various experiments that were flourishing in France and abroad. For Jean-Yves Faberon, the emergence of technopoles in France is at the crossroads of three different policies (Faberon 1990): first, a regional planning policy (metropolises, new towns, conversion clusters and growth clusters resulting from the Guichard Report of 1986); second, an innovation and research policy (including the July 15, 1982, act aiming to develop regional technology clusters in which research and the socio-economic world are decompartmentalized for the development of technologies) and finally, a decentralization policy promoting the emergence of regional technology clusters. The state is thus strongly committed to the development of these work and production spaces, convinced by the concept of cross-fertilization (Savall and Zardet 2005). In La fièvre des technopoles, Jacques de Certaines (Certaines 1988, p. 28) identifies three types of technology clusters. First, desaturation clusters aiming to relieve metropolitan congestion: in France, Sophia Antipolis falls into this category; in the United States, Route 128 comes to mind in relation to MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and in Japan, Tsukuba in the suburbs of Tokyo. Second, conversion clusters operate in areas that have undergone major crises, for example, in the former mining basins of northern and eastern France, such as Meylan-Grenoble, Nancy-Brabois or Metz 2000. Finally, Jacques de Certaines observes a third type of technopole: development clusters as a deliberate strategy for developing a region through territorial anchoring of cutting-edge technologies (he cites the examples of Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon Technopole and Rennes Atalante).

In their book, Technopoles of the World: The Making of 21st Century Industrial Complexes, Manuel Castells and Peter Hall analyze the different forms of industrial organization that technopoles can take (Castells and Hall 1994). Based on an empirical study of the principal global concentrations of technological activities, they distinguish between different types of technopoles, which show how broad the reference can be: high-tech industrial complexes (Silicon Valley, Route 128); science cities, where scientific research predominates, but where the link with the local industrial fabric is weak (the example of Tsukuba in Japan is highlighted); technology or science parks, which, for the authors, are the result of public initiatives for the economic development of the territory (Sophia Antipolis in France, Cambridge in the United Kingdom); even metropolitan areas such as Paris, Tokyo and London. From all these case studies, Castells and Hall identify three main motivations for technopoles: reindustrialization, regional development and the creation of synergies. The authors specify the long time needed to achieve these three objectives: 20–30 years to see the first effects.

Thus, for Faberon, the primary function of a technopole, and often the only one achieved, is to welcome business (Faberon 1990). In order to do this, various financial benefits are granted: free assistance services, notably through help in setting up projects, industrial property, interest-free loans, help in setting up a business through reduced rents and research and development subsidies. In addition, the site on which the technopole is located must be close to research and training institutions. It must also be well served by means of communication, proximity to highways, an airport, rail links, etc. Finally, as the quality of the buildings and the environment contribute to the image of the cluster, the site must have good landscaping and architecture and must include facilities (favorable living conditions, good health and school facilities, cultural life, etc.). The technopole is seen as a complete space combining three interrelated zones: an industrial fabric and work spaces, a core of institutes and research laboratories and residential areas for researchers and their families (Tatsuno 1987).

Thus, the technopolitan space is embodied in:

A place of spectacular urban planning, high-end leisure facilities, and cultural events […]. Indeed, creation is not limited to discoveries and applications in the scientific and industrial fields […]. It is the sum of human activity which is carried along in the wake of the intelligence revolution. A revolution which, in order to bear all its fruits, must in fact encompass all spheres of existence, which supposes that intelligence does not remain limited to the economic field alone (Garnier 1988b, p. 169).

The technopole is therefore seen as a “new city in which the informal contacts generated by cultural, sporting and civic activities would have contributed to cross-fertilization” (Rasse and Arasziewiez 2007, p. 3). Nevertheless, some of the literature on technopoles, in addition to showing that the accumulation of all these factors does not necessarily guarantee innovation performance (Castells and Hall 1994; Cooke 2001), questions the artificiality of these spaces and the consequences for technopolitan workers. A detour through Japan and the work of Sheridan Tatsuno demonstrate the artificial dimension of the creation ex nihilo of the Tsukuba technopole (also studied by Castells and Hall):

Many Tsukuba residents miss nothing more than walking through crowds on narrow sidewalks, sitting elbow to elbow in unimaginably tiny cafes and restaurants to warm their bodies and minds with sake and rich beers to maintain their long-standing relationships with the local butcher, baker, and police officer… It may be the city of brains, but it has neither heart nor soul (Tatsuno 1987, p. 139).

These critical comments on the artificiality of the technopole as a means of creating innovation spaces in areas that are, we might say, technology-free, occur early in the literature, but are still the minority view. Most of the literature on technopoles provides us with information on the mechanisms put in place, usually by public bodies, to generate a local culture, an innovation-producing environment. By highlighting a series of factors conducive to the creation of innovation, it differs from the literature on innovative environments, which seeks to determine how the “environment” is likely to innovate on the basis of the existing fabric (and in particular on the basis of a long-standing local culture, the history of the actors involved, etc.).