This article focuses on the implementation of the CTEs (Territorial Farm Contracts) in French agriculture. During the left Lionel Jospin’s government, this kind of contracts was created by the 1999 Agricultural Orientation Act in order to introduce changes in both the farming policy and individual strategies of farmers. Through the CTEs, farmers and public administration built a new social contract taking into account the implications of farming activities on the environment and countryside in France. Furthermore, the implementation of the CTEs opened the social debate about agriculture to new non-agricultural players (consumers, environmentalists, local authorities, forest owners…). Unfortunately, the CTEs did not receive sufficient social and economic support and could not resist the opposition from the French corporative agrarian lobby (particularly, from FNSEA and CNJA). The centre-right government abolished them in 2003 and created the current CADs (Contracts for Sustainable Agriculture). Paradoxally, the CTEs are today recovering their relevance in the framework of the new EU Regulation on Rural Development, as some European governments consider such contracts are useful to encourage farmers to assimilate the new agricultural and rural policies.