France to cut number of regions?

FRANCE’S local government map faces being redrawn after proposals from President Hollande that some of the 22 regions should join together to simplify bureaucracy and cut costs.

While Italy has 46 departments and just 8,000 communes, France has 22 regions, 101 departments, 37,000 communes and 2,456 intercommunal bodies.

Mr Hollande said: “There is no reason for there to be the same number in a few years as now.”
He may have Germany’s 15 Länder in mind as MP Thierry Mandon, who is to lead a “simplification council”, said on RMC radio that the idea was to have “around 15 regions, a reduction of 30%”.

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said departments in the petite couronne round Paris could join a “Grand Paris” and others elsewhere could merge with one of the 14 métropôles (new, large intercommunal bodies) being set up centred on major cities, of which the first, for Nice, was created in 2011. The rest are due by 2016).
Mr Ayrault, former mayor of Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), also spoke against “taking bits of regions and putting them with another”.

Mr Hollande also wants to clarify the roles of local government bodies, to “finish with the tangles, duplication and confusion”.
Regional councils’ responsibilities include lycées, train services, long-term planning strategies, professional training schemes and grants to businesses.
They have only existed since 1982, compared to departments which date from the Revolution. However many were based along traditional lines such as ancien régime provinces and an unelected version existed from the 1950s for economic development.

Decentralisation Minister Marylise Lebranchu told RTL the aim was to “encourage” mergers, rather than using “an axe”, with extra money on offer.
No official proposals have been made but she said a bill could be put forward “in April-May”.
Territorial changes have been proposed for years with nothing being done.

In 2008 the Attali report to President Sarkozy on boosting economic growth proposed strengthening the powers of the intercommunal bodies and abolishing departments.

Then, in 2009, another report to Mr Sarkozy, by former Prime Minister Edouard Balladur, suggested reducing the regions to 15 in moves that included merging Basse and Haute Normandie; sharing Poitou-Charentes between Aquitaine and Limousin; sharing Picardy between three regions; plus merging Franche-Comté and Burgundy, Brittany and Paysde- la-Loire, and Auvergne and Rhône-Alpes.

The plans were shelved, though the Sarkozy government then moved to cut the number of councillors by creating a single “territorial councillor” sitting on both regional and departmental councils.
Mr Hollande said at the time that breaking up Poitou-Charentes, whose president is his ex-partner Ségolène Royal, was “ham-fisted” and then later, once president, dropped the joint councillor plan.

Last September, the latest proposals came in a report to the Senate by senators Yves Krattinger and Jean-Pierre Raffarin who suggested just “eight to 10” regions by 2025, including a super-merger of Poitou- Charentes, Limousin and Aquitaine.

A single Normandy has been backed by Basse-Normandie president Laurent Beauvais, however his Haute-Normandie counterpart says he would insist on guarantees including Rouen being the capital.

Creating a “Grand-Ouest” out of Brittany and Pays de la Loire has also been raised, though appears to have less local support than attaching just one department, the historic Brittany department of Loire-Atlantique. Campaigners 44=Breizh say the others would “dilute Brittany” and “go against what many locals have called for for more than 40 years”.