Regional mergers: what effects will the public notice?

In order to simplify the ‘layered territorial structure’ and achieve a regional scale sufficient at European level, a decision was taken in 2015 to reorganise the regions, involving the merger of the 22 former administrative regions of mainland France into 13 new regions. In force since 1 January 2016, this reorganisation was carried out with a view to reducing inter-regional disparities, notably by merging large regions – which are ‘absorbing’ in administrative or economic terms – with smaller regions, which are ‘absorbed’. At the same time, the powers of the new regions were expanded under the NOTRé Act. An analysis comparing changes in the well-being reported by residents of the various regions concerned suggests, on the one hand, that the merger had no negative impact, and, on the other hand, that the absorption had a positive impact in the short term. The effects observed are particularly pronounced among a population that is more mobile in the labour market. At the macroeconomic level, the unemployment rate fell more sharply in the merged regions. These findings suggest that the scale effect of the new regions may have fostered a degree of economic dynamism that more than offset any potential sense of regional belonging.