This article concerns the international trends of public management reforms and focuses on their effects on public services and territories in different countries. It is based on a literature review about the links between reforms, transformation of public services and territories. Public management reforms have been conducted in several countries of Europe, North America and Australasia since the 1960s. The content of these reforms varies amongst countries, but, because they appeared in a specific economic context where State spending was considered as too costly, several similarities appear. The New Public Management (NPM) doctrine has, in particular, widely influenced the content of reforms adopted in these regions. New injunctions like the increase of performance, the reduction of public expenses, or the introduction of market-type mechanisms in States have becomemore and more important. In France, the reforms adopted since the 1990s have followed these international trends regarding public management reforms. The principles of equity and equality in access to public services seem to enter into an increasingly frontal conflict with economic viability or competitiveness. These tensions have important territorial consequences, that are analysed in the second part of the article : the balanced spatial distribution of public services progressively decreases in favour of a concentration. Rural areas and smaller cities are particularly affected by public service closures, or by changes in the forms of public services (e.g. digitalization). At the local scale, several studies suggest that public service closures could have negative effects on their frequentation, their accessibility, the local economy or on the well-being of inhabitants.