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Bibliography abounds in details about natural, technical and economical conditions of the development of the « Office du Niger » lands. This article aims to show the human aspects of this enterprise and insists on the opposition between the wish of constituting a modern countrymen center and that of creating an area of intensive agricultural production. After a brief introduction in order to retrace the Office program since the twenties and progression of the main hydraulic works and steps together with the settlement of more than thirty thousand inhabitants, the author analyses the conditions leading up to the conflict opposing the tillers to the Office representatives.It's not the planning scheme which determined the creation of a new farmer's type, but the aspects of the colonization itself which ordered a reconsideration of the land reclaiming programs.