rgion in france

France is divided into 26 rgions: 21 of these are in the continental part of metropolitan France, one is Corse on the island of Corsica (although strictly speaking Corse is in fact a "territorial collectivity", not a rgion, but is referred to as a rgion in common speech), 4 are overseas. Rgions are further subdivided into dpartements.

Role

Rgions do not have legislative autonomy, nor can they issue regulations. They do levy taxes (or, rather, the national government gives them a portion of the taxes it levies) and have sizeable, though not considerable budgets. Their main legal attribution is to build and pay equipment costs for high schools; in March 2004, the French national government announced a controversial plan to transfer to the rgions some categories of non-teaching school personnel. Critics of this plan contend that it is doubtful than sufficient fiscal resources for these additional charges will be transferred, and that such measures will increase inequalities between rgions. Apart from these legal attributions, rgions have considerable discretionary spending for infrastructure (education, public transportation systems, aid to universities and research, support for entrepreneurs). Because of this, being president of a wealthy rgion such as le-de-France or Provence-Alpes-Cte d'Azur may be quite a high profile position. There are, from time to time, discussions about giving limited legislative autonomy to the rgions, but such proposals are controversial. There are also proposals to suppress the local governments of the dpartements and to folding them into the rgions, keeping the dpartements only as administrative subdivisions.

List

Rgions which are also dpartements d'outre-mer (DOM)
(Overseas departments), each of them consisting of a single dpartement coterminous with a rgion:

Rgion In France

Role

List

See also