International audience This chapter intends to discuss the use of the concept of rural gentrification in order to give it stronger critical value, as well as a more precise meaning than the term "rural rebirth", as it is usually understood. Beyond the demographic revival of the countryside and the upgrading of rural landscapes and functions, which are easy to identify in the field, does social segregation actually occur in rural areas? On the basis of the examination of the current evolution of French rural areas, it will be suggested thanks to statistical analysis, selected case studies and complementary qualitative field interviews that real displacement processes of the poor are seldom encountered in French rural areas; however, some more invisible selective mechanisms, based on land prices or housing regulations, can be indirectly considered as a stronger and more critical validation of the concept of gentrification for rural areas.