"Searching for the Grand Paris" -A territory is first made up of people. In Paris, the Grand Paris, the Paris area, some people were born, live, came to live, come to work, migrants are just passing or staying, students come for a few months or years, people who had left and come back, such as pensioners visiting their children, tourists come visit, people dream of coming or are rejected, people live part-time, for a few days a week, and people are passing through for longer, more or less regularly, Japanese tourists in hotels or a Colombian family in an Airbnb, somebody coming every day from Tours or Le Mans, people coming for 3 days a week. In a metropolis, there is always a lot of intermixing, that drives the transformation of these various groups. It delicately balances different people over a very specific territory. This leads to inequalities, conflicts, fights for survival, as well as powerful dynamics of change, integration, mobility, upward mobility, transformation of social relations, relations between generations, between men and women, between various groups. Territories such as the Paris metropolis are huge suction pumps, which draw as well as reject populations from all over the world. Some leave after graduating, retiring, or to find a first job. This pump suctions and spits out inhabitants and all kinds of visitors. It is part of a globalized world, so people can come from all over France or from China, Africa or Brazil. Metropolises such as Paris are mosaics where various kinds of groups intermix and avoid each other. It is an incomplete urban factory with tensions to take over spaces, housing, stadiums or transportation. Very few neighborhoods or cities are completely closed off or isolated. Most people play a game of distance and proximity, sometimes wanting to be with similar people and sometimes to intermix. Paris and its suburbs are stepping stones. Many capitals allow young people to have experiences, to train, to find more skilled jobs or more opportunities. Paris is the cornerstone of social mobility. People who stay on this job market may have higher income, more professional opportunities, more chances for social mobility, but not all of them, of course. Inequalities and segregation are often more significant there. Paris was one of the first modern metropolises of the late 19th century. Before that, Rome, Baghdad or Beijing, had over 1 million people. But in the late 19th century, we had a model of large, globalized cities with colonial empires, a cultural life, modern transportation, such as tramways or subways, blue-collar areas, urban riots. Paris, like Berlin, Vienna, London or New York, would be a modern global metropolis. Today, we still have large, global metropolises all over the world. Paris is one of them, and has to face scaling issues, with more globalization, a more present EU, a less present state, and more territories and cities. Consequently, in the Grand Paris, people, goods, financial flows, ideas, sometimes clouds, circulate more and more within the area and outside. Large metropolises have their own job market, their stations and airports. In Pierre Weill's words, they are organized like spaces and bonds, places where a lot is happening as well as spaces connected to other cities in the world. All this raises governance issues. "Governance" or "government" implies a relationship between the governors and the governed. Who is being governed in the Paris area? Are Mexican tourists or passing pensioners governed? Are students or inhabitants? How can we give them infrastructure, services, to perceive taxes, orient behaviors and enforce the rules of the game? This is our topic. This session follows issues regarding metropolization, the job market, population growth. We will tackle the historical dimension and debate to highlight more prominent issues, in this case: are we witnessing, in the Paris area, an increase in spatial and ethnic inequalities? Is there more or less segregation?