Governance rescaling and regional planning in france: is big really beautiful?

Abstract

In recent years, France has undergone a series of administrative reforms. In 2015, two successive laws modified the boundaries of France’s mainland administrative regions, reducing them from 22 to 13 in number, whilst also devolving new competencies to them. The promoters of these laws argued that ‘large regions’ are levers of power and attractiveness, while changing the boundaries of the regions would demonstrate a real capacity to reform France’s existing political- administrative organisation, which has been widely criticised for being cumbersome and costly. In short, the 2015 reform has been touted both as a mechanism for adapting to new economic situations as well as a means for modernising public action. In view of all that, what has actually happened? What are France’s regional authorities really capable of today? How does the change in scale allow public action to be transformed? In line with the general perspective of this book, this chapter provides some answers to these vast questions by analysing specifically how the ‘large’ regions address development policies. The chapter begins by presenting the reform and the new competencies that regions have gained in regional planning. It then looks at the transformations that this renewal of regional planning has brought about.