In France, ‘les pôles métropolitains’ (PM) is the latest central government initiative to reinforce inter-city cooperation (2010). After giving a short overview of French city-networking history, this paper investigates two ‘pôles métropolitains’ to explore the difficulties in achieving efficient inter-city cooperation. It finds that implementing such new tools for urban and economic projects requires new skills and spatial representation for planners, politicians and local administrations. This analysis gives decision-makers concrete examples of pôles métropolitains, focusing on governance issues. It can also help to stimulate progress in constructing a theoretical and critical approach for conceptualizing inter-city networking policy.