Characterized by a similar size and radial structure, high-speed rail French and Spanish networks are designed to meet long distance accessibility needs of major metropolitan systems. However, the two systems serve a number of towns with less than 100,000 inhabitants, which understand this opportunity as means to improve their attractiveness. The comparison of the two networks, which systems obey to different operating principles, allows specifying the role played by the high speed in the precise situation of these small towns. Moreover, this comparison allows analyzing interactions between accessibility gains and development strategies that have been implemented. Beyond their diversity, the very ambitious development projects have dropped only modest benefits. These short achievements of the strategies implemented are questioning whether these small towns, with reduced concentrating functions, are able to articulate accessibility advances and territorial development in a context of metropolization processes accentuated by high speed rail.