The electoral boundaries under the Fifth Republic - between partisan logics and parliamentary interests

The myth of the gerrymandering overshadows the redistricting. Governments allegedly use it to draw a favorable electoral map aiming electoral profits. Thus, it is supposed to be an electioneering mechanism used for partisan motives. In France, few studies have been devoted to redistricting which is also an important object within the international political scientist literature. The thesis puts forward a study of the legislative redistricting under the Fifth Republic following two axes. The first one, the analysis of the policy process, questions the role and the actions of the government. Through a multidisciplinary analysis, it appears that the government is strongly constrained and that MPs have a main function. The second one relates to the consequences of redistricting. After developing a method to understand the politics of limits, the empirical study - statistical and cartographic - shows that districts are made according to deputies - incumbents -, before favoring political parties, or the majority making the redistricting. It also appears that if the constituency boundaries are not decisive, they still have structural consequences on the electoral competition. Under the Fifth Republic, redistricting can be described as interparliamentary and intrapartisan. To sum up, neither the redistricting process nor its electoral consequences match the "classic" cognitive representation of the redistricting.