International audience This article aims at giving an overview about the four main collections of problems and studies that have structured over the last four decades what could be called the French school of rural sociology: from the rural exodus to the "rural renaissance"; the question of social change and innovation in agriculture; the working conditions, living conditions, professions in agriculture, and the alternative initiatives and paths away from productivism; politics and organisations in agriculture. In the last section, perspectives to understand splintering and coexistence of new forms of production organisation and agricultural trade in a context of globalisation are formulated.