This paper analyzes the changing public/private as well as central/local relationships for the provision of public security in public places in France. It describes the emergence and development of a now frequent public-private mix in policing, based on the hot issue of regulating social behaviours in public places. The significance of the French model in terms of the nature of privatization and pluralization is then discussed and compared to international trends. The rise of a local level public-private mix, while not unique in Europe, appears as a major shift in a French environment traditionally characterized by the structural centralization of its public forces.