In recent years it seemed to have been shelved, but a project to reduce the number of France's regions has seen now again the light of day after French President François Hollande has vowed to re-take the dossier. French Socialists argue that the number of regions should be 15, well below the 26 that currently make up the French Republic.

The idea had in fact been previously raised by former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who in 2008 commissioned Édouard Balladur to submit a proposal for the reform of local collectivities. In France, local collectivites include all those bodies other than the central government: regions, departments, municipalities and special overseas bodies. The Constitution recognizes the exercise of certain powers to all of them.

Balladur delivered the report in 2009. It recommended reducing the number of regions in metropolitan France to 15. Hollande is now following this path. The current president has not specified what the concrete changes to the regional map would be, but Balladur's proposal map could give some clues on that. His proposal included the dissolution of Picardy region and the merger of several other regions. Thus, Auvergne would be unified either with Limousin or Rhône-Alpes. Alsace and Lorraine were to be merged into a single region, and the same fate was foreseen for Burgundy and Franche-Comté. Both Normandy regions were to unifiy into one. Brittany was to annex the department of Loire Atlantique, or even maybe Brittany and Pays de la Loire were to merge into one single region.

As happened in 2009, the proposed changes have sparked reactions all over France. The Breton Democratic Union, for example, says that the only acceptable solution is to reunite Brittany and Loire Atlantique, and to forget about the Pays de la Loire. In Alsace , President Philippe Richert believes the project is  unrealistic, but his counterpart in Lorraine, Jean-Pierre Masseret, concedes that it goes "in the right direction". In Auvergne, meanwhile, a debate has begun on whether to join Limousin (with a shared geography and language) or with Rhône-Alpes (where the largest city in the area, Lyon, is included).

A little more autonomy for the regions

Hollande's proposal, however, goes further that that. The President also wants to reach a "strict clarification of responsibilities between local collectivities" in order to avoid current "duplication" of functions between bodies. In this process, Hollande wants some more powers to be transferred to the regions, including a "regulatory power" on adapting French laws into local situations. In no case would this imply to grant legislative powers to the regional assemblies.

(Image: François Hollande / Picture by Matthieu Riegler.)