Within the metropolis of Lille the new town of Villeneuve-d’Ascq, whose construction began thirty years ago and was ended ten years later through political will, has built progressively a political memory that makes it specific. As a full town from the beginning, it had difficulty asserting itself as an independent urban entity. Its relationships with the town of Lille are not unambiguous. The article analyses the relationships between urban development and politics. Did the town fashion a new type of political activism? What was its legitimacy? How did the town councillors themselves appropriate this new urban space?