Based on investigative material focused on the Métropole européenne de Lille (MEL) and its media coverage, this article aims to understand how the mechanisms of closure of a political institution are constructed and maintained, by insisting on the conjunction of two phenomena related to publicity: the discretion of elected officials regarding the deliberative and decision-making processes of the MEL reinforces its invisibility and, in return, the impermeability of these same elected officials vis-à-vis external claims and contestations. After analyzing the institutionalization of a “coalition order” based on the rejection of all forms of politicization and the extroversion of internal conflicts, we will show, on the one hand, how the rare and ephemeral moments of controversy always emerge from outside the institution and, on the other hand, that even the publicizing of cases of corruption involving the executive of the MEL does not affect the collusive exchanges in terms of the distribution of posts and budgetary resources. Beyond this case study, the intertwined processes of “un-democratization” of local political institutions in France can be observed.