Since the latter half of the nineteenth century, industrialization and modernization have strongly shaped the development of the French department Ariège. Over the last roughly 150 years, Ariège has seen its population decline from a quarter million to 150,00. Its traditional agrarian economy has been remade for competition on global markets, and the department has relied on tourism to bring in revenue where other traditional industries have failed to do so. In this thesis I identify the European Union and French policies that continue to guide Ariège's development through subsidies and regulation. I explain the origins and effects of modernization on rural areas such as Ariège, and the ways in which market pressures and new technologies have reshaped the landscape, and advance an argument for why Ariège's story is relevant across rural Europe and communities globally that exist at the margins.