The planned redrawing of France's regional map to create bigger and, in theory, more powerful regions will lead to greater geographic inequality, an analysis by Mediapart has shown. The reform, approved in outline by French MPs on July 23rd, will cut the number of French regions from 22 to 13 by merging many of them into larger super-regions. The changes will mean that just three of the regions will share half of the country's wealth between them. At the same time smaller regions such as Brittany in west France and the Centre will be among the poorest. Other consequences include a larger elderly population for the new super-region based around Aquitaine in south-west France. Another key question which arises – and which is so far unanswered - is how can the reforms save the 12 billion to 25 billion euros that supporters claim, without cutting public services?
The decision to reform local government and redraw the map of France – which was not in François Hollande’s manifesto – was announced earlier this year and the first outline was published back in June. Having attacked fierce criticism for its arbitrary nature, the first map was soon abandoned and the latest version was adopted in late July.
Below there are three different versions of the map of France. The one marked 'Aujourd'hui' is the current map with 22 regions. The one marked '1re réforme' is the first reform proposal produced by the Elysée on June 3rd, showing 14 regions, while the third map marked '2nde réforme' is the 'final' map approved by MPs on July 23rd.
One thing that seems certain is that not every new region will emerge a winner from the parliamentary debates, which resume again in the French upper house, the Senate, in the autumn. Although one of the stated aims of the boundary reform is to create larger regions that can compete on a European level, several indicators show that one of the impacts of the changes will be to increase inequalities between areas of France. Below Mediapart takes a look at how the regions will compare in this new map of France.
- Rhône-Alpes-Auvergne – the second most populous region in France
The graphic below shows that the fusion of the Rhône-Alpes in the south-east with the Auvergne in the centre will create the second biggest French region in terms of population. The largest remains the Île-de-France, the region that includes Paris.
The Centre – France's poorest region after Corsica
The regions that will not be merging with another area will end up the poorest. Initially the Centre – which starts just below the Île-de-France and stretches down to the Loire Valley – was scheduled to be merged with the Poitou-Charentes and the Limousin to create one huge but very rural region in the centre west. However, after a local revolt in those two regions, the Limousin and Poitou-Charentes have instead been grouped with the Aquitaine in the south-west, leaving the Centre on its own. In the existing set-up it is a respectable ninth out of 22 in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), but on the new map it will slip to last but one, above the much smaller Corsica.
Meanwhile two other regions that are staying unchanged, Brittany and the Pays de la Loire – currently one of the richest regions of France – will see themselves overtaken economically by the merged entities of Midi-Pyrénées-Languedoc, Alsace-Lorraine-Champagne and Aquitaine-Limousin-Poitou-Charentes. This last region will become the largest in France in terms of surface area, covering 84,000km2.
The reforms will in effect give rise to three different categories of region. In the first category are the Île-de-France and Rhône-Alpes-Auvergne who are well ahead of the others in terms of economic clout. Next will come a chasing pack made up, for the most part, of newly-merged groupings such as Aquitaine-Poitou-Limousin, Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardy and Alsace-Lorraine. These are the new regions with strong potential for growth, supposedly ready to compete on a European level, even if former Socialist Party first secretary Martine Aubry – mayor of Lille in Nord-Pas-de-Calais- has criticised the merger of her region with that of Picardy. She claims that merging what are currently two of the country's poorest areas will not help either region. Then there are the remaining regions, including Brittany, Normandy, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and the Centre. These run the risk of being pushed to one side and will find it hard to catch up with the other regions in the scramble to be competitive on a European level.
The problems the smaller and less wealthy regions will face is even more apparent when one looks at the trends in their GDP over recent years (see below). Once again the Centre is shown to be one of the least dynamic areas with a growth of 1.2% per year, compared with an average in France of 1.4% and more than 2% for the most economically active areas such as Rhône-Alpes-Auvergne or the Île-de-France. Part of the economic dynamism of these regions stems from the fact that they are places where people want to go and live. As a growth in GDP correlates with population growth, the wealth gap between the regions could well increase.
Corsica, spending king of France
The Centre is also bottom of the list when it comes to the size of regions' budgets in relation to the number of inhabitants. Though the French Mediterranean island of Corsica has only 320,000 inhabitants its spending budget was 641 million euros in 2012. For the Centre the figure is just over a billion euros, in other words just 1.56 times greater than Corsica while having a population that is eight times bigger. It should be noted as a caveat that as an island Corsica benefits from several exceptions in the way it is funded. “Corsica is a local authority with its own particular status. Its budget figures are higher when the totals are expressed in euros spent per inhabitant,” notes the local government website that explains the working of regional budgets in France.
Three out of 13 regions will contain half the country's wealth
According to the impact study supplied to parliamentarians, the regions should be “more homogeneous in terms of wealth”, but that will not be the case. The three richest regions, Rhône-Alpes-Auvergne, Île-de-France and Aquitaine-Poitou-Limousin, will between them share half of mainland France’s GDP.
Demographic inequalities between the regions
Older population for a bigger Aquitaine region
Because of the attractive warmer climate there, there is a greater proportion of older people living in the southern half of France than in the north. The Aquitaine-Poitou-Limousin region in the south-west will therefore find itself top of the list when it comes to the proportion of people over 60; nearly a third of all its inhabitants will fall into this category. Next come Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (PACA) on the Mediterranean coast and Corsica where people over the age of 60 will make up around 27% of the population.
- The north attracts the young...
The region that will have the greatest proportion of inhabitants under 20 will be the new grouping of Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardy, closely followed by the Île-de-France. The graphic below shows a France split in two, with more younger people in the northern half of the country and more older people in the southern regions.
- ...and the jobless
From the point of view of unemployment, the reform of regional boundaries is unlikely to influence the statistics greatly. Once again, the stated aim of using the reform to reduce inequalities between different parts of the country seems to have failed. Indeed, the proportion of regions whose jobless rate is above the national average of 9.8% will remain the same or even rise slightly; six out of the 13 new regions (46%) will be over the average, against 41% of current areas.
Click on the map below to see the rate of unemployment for each new planned region; the darker colours indicate a higher jobless rate.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter