Pierre Grémion's Le pouvoir périphérique (“peripheral power”) is undoubtedly the most influential book on French local politics. However, a half-century after its publication, this reference work is generally only used as a historical yardstick against which to assess the extent of the political and administrative transformations that France has witnessed since the 1970s. This article argues that although the empirical underpinnings of Grémion's work are now obsolete, his bottom-up approach remains relevant to understand contemporary changes in French administration and their impact on central-local relations. It sheds light on new forms of centralization in the context of a now decentralized France, forms which are no longer based on supervisory authority but on competition and emulation mechanisms.