Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by International Society for Third-Sector Research and The Johns Hopkins University. This e-offprint is for personal use only and shall not be selfarchived in electronic repositories. If you wish to self-archive your article, please use the accepted manuscript version for posting on your own website. You may further deposit the accepted manuscript version in any repository, provided it is only made publicly available 12 months after official publication or later and provided acknowledgement is given to the original source of publication and a link is inserted to the published article on Springer's website. The link must be accompanied by the following text: "The final publication is available at link.springer.com".Abstract This article puts the current cooperative pattern of state-nonprofit relations in France into historical context against the country's statist past and suggests the implications this experience may have for other countries that share the statist background that France, perhaps in somewhat different form, also embodies. To do so, the discussion first reviews the current shape of the French nonprofit sector and the substantial scope and structure of government support of nonprofit human service delivery that exists. It then examines the unfavorable historical background out of which the current arrangements emerged and the set of changes that ultimately led to the existing pattern of extensive government-nonprofit cooperation. Against this background, a third section then looks more closely at the tools of action French governments are bringing to bear in their relations with nonprofits, the advantages and drawbacks of each, and the nonprofit role in the formulation of public policies. Finally, the article examines the key challenges in government-nonprofit cooperation in the provision of human services and the lessons the French experience might hold for Russia and other similar countries.Résumé Cet article place le modèle coopératif actuel des relations entre É tat et organisations à but non lucratif en France dans un contexte historique par rapport au passé étatiste du pays, et propose les implications que cette expérience peut avoir pour d'autres pays qui partagent le cadre étatiste que la France, peut-être sous une forme un peu différente, représente également. Pour ce faire, l'étude examine tout d'abord la forme actuelle du secteur à but non lucratif français ainsi que Frente a este telón de fondo, una tercera sección analiza más estrechamente las herramientas de acción que los gobiernos franceses están aplicando en sus relaciones con las organizaciones sin ánimo de lucro, las ventajas y desventajas de cada una, y el papel de las organizaciones sin ánimo de lucro en la formulación de políticas públicas. Finalmente, el artículo examina los desafíos claves de la cooperación gobierno-organizaciones sin ánimo de lucro en la provisión de servicios sociales y las lecciones que la experiencia francesa podría tener para Rusi...