In this article, we turn to the issues that stem from the partnership between Francophone community organizations in a minority setting and the Canadian federal state. While it seems to respond to the communities’ will of taking charge of their own development, by promoting notably a process based on the principle of shared governance, this partnership nevertheless has administrative requirements that appear to weaken autonomy and the free governance of Francophone communities in a minority setting. The participation of Francophone organizations in elaborating and implementing public policies comes with the bureaucratization of their community activities and a re-assessment of their representative structures. Because they must more formally represent the community’s general interest and must directly collaborate with the state in order to attain their objectives, they are compelled to act in a way that, we note, clashes with new legitimacy imperatives. These have the effect of questioning the corporatist arrangement that has formed between them and the state. It is this legitimacy issue that weighs on the new world of governance among FSMC that we wish to reveal in our research, a few elements of which we present in this article.