As it is most often conceived, the theme of "sustainable development" refers to a wide range of changes to be carried out in all spheres of society. For this reason, it is logically in line with a tone of general mobilization. It frequently leads to a call for renewed procedures in the organization of community life, in order to encourage all the cooperation that could be useful. A common problem on the procedures to be put in place to reconcile, or at least make them think and discuss, actors with potentially divergent interests has thus formed around the issues of sustainable development and governance. In a sense, "sustainable development" is, more or less explicitly, to be taken as an incentive to rethink the question of the practical experience of democracy and of the institutions from which it is supposed to operate. It is even a form of equation that tends to be almost raised between "sustainable development" and democracy, with a relationship of dependency between the two terms. Such an assumption is an invitation to ask more precisely to what extent the goal of "sustainable development" may lead or contribute to a redefinition of democracy, both in its principles and in its practices. What kind of progress towards democracy is drawn? What assumptions are articulated? What proposals arrive in the discussions? To what devices do these proposals tend to lead? What kind of practices is taking shape and to what extent do they come as a continuation of what seems to be a renewed programme of government? This contribution tries to answer these questions, principally in the European and French context.