The Multi-Reference Energy Density Functional (MR-EDF) approach (also called con guration mixing or Generator Coordinate Method), that is commonly used to treat pairing in nite nuclei and project onto particle number, is re-analyzed. It is shown that, under certain conditions, the MR-EDF energy can be interpreted as a functional of the one-body density matrix of the projected state with good particle number. Based on this observation, we propose a new approach, called Symmetry-Conserving EDF (SC-EDF), where the breaking and restoration of symmetry are accounted for simultaneously. We show, that such an approach is free from pathologies recently observed in MR-EDF and can be used with a large exibility on the density dependence of the functional.