Within the framework of the international development of open access to scientific publications, this thesis analyses more precisely the French situation in the European context. This analysis was carried out through a process of action research within a group of actors of the French Professional Group for B to B Information and Knowledge (GFII) who are concerned by open access.At first, we seek to highlight the driving forces behind the development of open access by relying on a method of prospective developed by LIPSOR/ CNAM.The results led us to contribute to the design of an information website whose purpose is to display the national publisher policies on self-archiving practices in order to support the development of new deposit practices at the national level. The prospective analysis has indeed revealed the importance of embargo periods for the financial balances of the publishers.By adopting a more distanced point of view, we initiate a new reflection about the real impact of open access on two important driving forces which seem to play an increasing role in the knowledge economy, namely creativity and interdisciplinarity.