ECPR Joint Sessions

Edinburgh, 28th March - 2nd April 2003

Workshop 3. Building a Party Family: Comparing Regionalist Parties
Directors: Marga Gomez-Reino Cachafeiro & Peter Lynch

Electoral performance of regionalist parties and perspectives on regional

identity in French regions

Frans J. Schrijver
Department of Geography and Planning, University of Amsterdam
Nieuwe Prinsengracht 130, 1018 VZ, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
E-mail: f.schrijver@frw.uva.nl

Introduction

As in many other European countries, France has a number of active regionalist movements,
which use different methods to put forward their demands, from use of violence and political
activism to participation in democratic elections. There are however no strong established
regionalist parties in France with an important electoral impact, like for instance the Scottish
National Party in Scotland or the Partido Nacionalista Vasco in the Basque Country. France
has, though, a number of regions with a history of regionalist protest, and a number of regions
that are often regarded to have a distinctive ethnic or regional identity. Also, there do exist a
number of regionalist political parties, some of them member of the European Free Alliance.
In analyses of the emergence or successes of regionalist movements, attention is often
paid to the existence of a distinct regional identity as a foundation for mobilisation by
regionalists. Subjective and objective features of this regional identity are distinguished, the
latter often divided into cultural (e.g. a regional language) or material (e.g. unemployment)
elements (cf. Hearl et al., 1996). The subjective notion of regional identity is mostly reduced
to the sense of belonging to the region among its inhabitants. This refers to the role of the
region in the identity of the individual. The region with which one identifies oneself is only
one out of a set of attributes one has, at other spatial levels, European or local for instance,
and non-territorial, such as class or gender. In particular instances this regional identity of
individuals can become politically salient (Gore, 1984, pp.261-262). This concentration on the
identity of the individual tends to disregard the territory to which this regional identity is
connected. A geographical perspective might help to fill the gap between the inhabitants’
identity and the region, of which the existence is too often taken as a given. Instead of
resolving this by opting for objective features of the region, there is also a possibility to pay
attention to the subjective identity of the region itself.
This paper presents a comparative analysis of the electoral performance of regionalist
parties in France, and aims to compare differences found between regions regarding electoral
success and political goals of regionalist parties with regional variations in subjective notions
of regional identity. By including both the regional identity of individuals as well as a
subjective notion of the identity of the region, an attempt is made to answer the question to
which degree both perspectives on the concept of regional identity are relevant determinants
of electoral regionalism in France. The strength of the regional identities of individuals is
compared with their national, French identity.

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 In this paper it is not intended to discuss in detail the organisation, programmes and
backgrounds of the regionalist parties in France, nor embark on an attempt to offer a complete
explanation of the spread and success of regionalist parties. The focus is on comparison
between regions and regionalists in different parts of France and different components of the
concept of regional identity. Developments over time receive therefore relatively little
attention.
However, developments over time have a central position in the larger research project
this paper is part of, concentrating upon the effect of administrative and political
regionalisation on the dynamics of political regionalism. As in this research project, here the
administrative regions of France are taken as territorial units of analysis. Those regions do not
always coincide with the territories defended by regionalist movements, and regionalists that
represent territories completely different in scale than the existing administrative regions, for
instance Occitania or Savoy, are not included in the statistical comparison in this paper. On
the other hand, including all administrative regions allows for a comparison between regions
with and without any regionalist movements, and their different levels and types of regional
identity. For the sake of consistency, the level of the state, France, is referred to as ‘national’,
and the level of the regions and regionalist movements connected with it as ‘regional’, despite
the fact that some movements call their territory and themselves national and nationalist.
This paper first attempts to clarify different understandings of the concept of regional
identity, followed by a comparative overview of regionalist parties and their territories in
France. It will then use the analytical connections made between regional identities of
individuals and the identity of regions to explore the value of these perspectives for an
analysis of variations in electoral performance of regionalist parties.

Regionalism and conceptual dimensions of regional identity

A definition of regionalism will always be built around two components: a territory and a
regional identity (Türsan, 1998, p.5). Regionalist movements stress this particular regional
identity and the existence of a specific social group with a specific territory. To make this
connection between territory and place, Bourdieu (1982) uses the word origine. Origin should
here not be directly translated into objective personal characteristics such as place of birth, but
suggests an answer to the identity question where do I belong? When this concerns a
territorial group identity the answer refers both to a place and a community, ‘we’, connected
to that territory. So, central to territorial identity is, next to belonging somewhere, the sense of
belonging to a social group amongst people living in a certain territory. Such a community is
however not made up of people who actually know each other. Most people who share a
national or regional, or even urban identity, have never met each other, do not know each
others name and live completely separate lives. They may even have much more to do with
people living in the territory of another, perhaps neighbouring group. Benedict Anderson
states in this respect that the nation is an “imagined political community. […] It is imagined,
because its members […] will never know most of their fellow- members […], yet in the
minds of each lives the image of their communion” (Anderson, 1983. p.15). This applies for
regional communities just as it does for national communities.
As Van der Wusten and Knippenberg stress on the ethnic dimension in politics, this
imagined community needs to be constructed and maintained, in “a struggle for the contents
of the hearts and minds of a following and an appreciation of the result of its projection on the
real world” (2001, p.275). Whether regionalist actors receive support within their region relies
first of all on the acceptance in the region of the sense of community. This also underlines the

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dynamic nature of regional identities. As an imagined social category that needs maintenance,
regional identities can grow in strength, or weaken and disappear.
Regionalist movements do not only stress the identity of a region and its inhabitants,
but also politicise this identity and lay claims to a domain. They claim more autonomy for
their region, ranging from cultural to political, and from decentralisation to full independence.
Politicisation and mobilisation of the members of the imagined community to support these
autonomy goals is thus a second dimension that determines the success of regionalist
movements (Van der Wusten & Knippenberg, 2001, p.275). Not all regions with a strong
sense of regional identity among their inhabitants have widely supported regionalist
movements, or any at all. The regional identity has to be given a political dimension. Because
increased regional autonomy means a transfer of powers, more decision-making capacities for
regional authorities, at the expense of those of the central state authorities, this politicisation
combines an emphasis of the region’s lack of autonomy with a protest against the dominance
of the national state. It is therefore to be expected that regionalism is not only based on a
strong regional identity, but on a relatively weak national identity as well.
Anssi Paasi (1996, 1986) offers a framework for the analysis of the concept of
regional identity. Within the concept of regional identity, he makes a distinction between the
regional identity of the inhabitants of a region and the identity of the region. The former refers
to the identification or attachment of individuals to their region, what is usually understood as
the subjective regional identity. The latter, the identity of the region, refers first to ‘objective’
features (economic, cultural, natural, etc.) of the region that distinguish it from other regions,
and can be used rhetorically. Secondly, this identity of the region refers to the images of the
region held by insiders and outsiders. These images can correspond with the factual
characteristics of the region and the regional community, but not necessarily so. The images
held by people outside the region can be based on stereotypes, or related to tourism or war for
instance. The insiders’ images involve a consciousness of the special character of one’s own
region and factors it is built on (Paasi, 1986). These images, held by members of the regional
community, are reflections of the recognition of ‘real’ or mythical features and symbols of the
region. They therefore make a connection between the sense of regional identity of the
inhabitants and the objective features that characterise the region. Politicisation of a regional
identity and mobilisation of the population by regio nalist movements is mostly not based on
factual characteristics and differences, but on recognised and perceived distinctions and
cleavages (Moore, 2001). It is in this sense that the image of the region held by its inhabitants
might be a useful perspective on the concept of regional identity as an opportunity and base
for regionalist movements, next to the identification of the inhabitants with the region,
compared with other spatial levels, and the ‘objective’ characteristics of the region.

Regionalist parties in France

France is one of the few states in Western Europe were a regionalist conflict has resulted in
structural use of violence. In Corsica, like in the Basque Country and Northern Ireland, the
use of violence as a form of political protest, with thousands of terrorist attacks (Olivesi,
1998, p.187) and the presence of clandestine organisations have marked the regionalist
struggle. In contrast, regionalists in France have been less successful in the use of democratic
means to let their voice be heard. No regionalist party has reached the electoral level of
support that parties in the Basque Country, Catalonia and Scotland have reached. Despite the
fact that there is quite a large number of regionalist movements, in a large number of regions,
there is no single regionalist delegate in the 577 member Assemblée Nationale.

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 Still, there have been some successes in the transfers of autonomy for the regionalist,
although this has remained modest, compared with for instance Spain, Belgium and the
United Kingdom. In 1982 François Mitterand made a complete reversal to the French
tradition of government that had celebrated standardisation, uniformity, hierarchy, a
combination of centralisation and deconcentration, and the idea of la République une et
indivisible. Mitterand made the 22 régions (see Map 1), which had until then only existed as
planning regions and territories of deconcentrated administration, into administrative regions
next to the départements which had formed the main meso-level since 1790. Although the
powers of the French régions were rather modest compared to Italy and Spain or federal
Germany, it certainly meant a turn away from the centralisation clung onto before. Significant
in this respect were the objections of the right wing opposition, such as the deputy Michel
Debré from the Rassemblement pour la République (RPR), stating during the parliamentary
debate that the proposal of regionalisation “ne permettra pas d’éviter les conflits et menacera
l’unité de l’Etat, de la nation.” (…will not permit avoidance of conlicts and will threaten the
unity of the State, of the nation) (cited in Le Monde, 11 September 1981).

Map 1 The 22 administrative régions of France

The regionalisation was partly a response to claims made by regionalist mo vements

that had came up in the 1960s and 70s. Earlier introduction of regional elections and extended
decision- making capabilities for Corsica were an answer to the louder regionalist voice on the
island. Regionalist movements have existed in France since the late nineteenth century, with
Brittany and Occitania as front-runners. But during the 1960s and 70s regionalist action
became more radical and more politicised, especially in Brittany, in Occitania in combination
with winegrowers protests, and in Corsica in combination with clandestine organisations and
violence (Quere, 1978, Croisat & Souchon, 1979, Keating & Hainsworth, 1986). This was
much more a regionalism of activists than of politicians competing at elections. Although the
use of violent political action may have an important political impact, it is generally supported
by a minority of the population, and is therefore mostly not a good indicator of the total level
of support for a political movement. Therefore, this paper focuses on democratic means and
on regionalist parties that participate in political elections. One of the most significant aspects
of the regionalisation by president Mitterand was the introduction of regional elections, which
gave the regional councillors and executive a democratic mandate, and offered regionalist

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parties the opportunity to present themselves in a political arena where issues were discussed
at the spatial level of the territories they claimed to represent.
For the regional elections in France an electoral system of proportional representation
was established, which is generally considered to be favourable to regionalists, and small
parties in general (De Winter, 1998). Apart from an experiment with proportional
representation for the legislatives of 1986, all other political elections are held under a two-
round majoritarian system. The only other exception are the European elections, which are
held under a system of proportional representation, but with the whole of France as one large
constituency and a 5 % electoral threshold, which is also unfavourable for regional parties.
For the regional elections, held every six years, the départements became the constituencies.
Each party presents a list per département, and a fixed number of seats for the conseil
régional is awarded to each département. This varies according to the number of seats in the
conseil régional, the population of the département and the number of départements in the
région. The electoral threshold to gain a seat is set at 5% of the votes cast 1 .
Although the state constitutes the level where regionalists have to claim, negotiate and
obtain their region’s autonomy, the regional political arena is the place where their support
has to be mobilised, and the electoral system at national elections, unfavourable to regional
parties, has caused changing degrees of participation by regionalist parties at those elections.
Therefore, for an interregional comparison, in France regional elections are the best instances
to analyse the electoral results of regionalist parties. When comparing the regional and
national (legislatives) elections in France since 1986, the results of regionalist candidates have
been consistently higher at the regional elections, and participation by regionalist parties more
stable.
At the most recent regional elections in 1998, a total of 801 lists of candidates
participated in the whole country2 . Of those, 592 were presented by national parties or
coalitions of national parties and 209 by regional or local parties, independent candidates or
dissident candidates of national parties. An extensive analysis of political programmes,
campaign manifestoes and reports in regional newspapers showed that 29 of those can be
considered regionalist according to their political programme. Emphasis on a regional identity
and a distinctive regional culture, and aiming for more autonomy for their region were key
elements in their political programme. A mentioning of an existing regional identity or a
dedication to regionalisation are a sine qua non for regionalist parties but not enough to be
classified as such. Most candidates at regional elections will declare a strong tie with the
region and a willingness to defend its interests against those of other regions. Such allegiance
is not reserved to regiona lists. Standing up for the regional identity, specified through cultural
elements such as a regional language or claims of being a ‘nation’ or a ‘people’ or striving
after an extended regional autonomy and decentralisation should be present to qualify as a
regionalist programme. There are also many candidates at elections that are in favour of
decentralisation or that say to value local traditions. When those opinions are not part of his or
her main political programme they will not make the list a regionalist one. Determining how
prominent the regionalist themes should be in a programme to consider the list as regionalist
is no easy task. A viable minimum requirement is that those issues should be the main issue in
a programme, possibly with a few other issues.
Not all of the lists of candidates with a regionalist programme were put forward by
established regionalist parties. A number of independent candidates had a distinctively
regionalist manifesto, and some of them marked themselves as regionalist or nationalist.
Votes on those lists are an indication of the electoral support for regionalism. Some of them
are municipal councillors and have contested other elections, but none of the independent lists
presented in 1998 at the regional elections developed into a regionalist party. The rest was

5
presented by 16 different regionalist parties or combinations of parties in Alsace, the Basque
Country, Brittany, Catalonia, Corsica, Occitania, Provence and Savoy (see Table 1).
The political programmes, manifestos and autonomy claims of those regionalist parties
in France differ substantially. Most are autonomist rather than separatist parties. In fact, only
Corsica Nazione, Abertzaleen Batasuna and the Ligue Savoisienne explicitly claimed
independence for their region in their programme during the electoral campaign in 1998. All
other parties claim more political autonomy for their region or restrict themselves to cultural
autonomy, such as the defence of regional languages and the ratification by France of the
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
Seven of those parties – Union du Peuple Alsacien, Union Démocratique Bretonne,
Unione di u Populu Corsu, Partit Occitan, Mouvement Région Savoie, the Ligue Savoisienne
and Unitat Catalana - are part of the European Free Alliance, which means that nearly one
third of the European Free Alliance’s members are from France, although they provide none
of its nine present MEP’s.

Table 1 Election results of regionalist candidates, regional elections 1998

Territory Party Percentage Max. Seats
of votes* percentage obtained
of votes**
Alsace Alsace d’Abord 5.82 % 6.60 % 2
l’Union du Peuple Alsacien 1.54 %
Bretagne Union Démocratique Bretonne 2.91 % 4.08 %
Independent, ‘Bretagne on sème’ 1.11 %
Corse Corsica Nazione (A Cuncolta Indipendista, and others ) 5.23 % 53
Unione di u Populu Corsu 4.96 %
Movimentu pà l’Autodeterminazione 3.41 %
Corsica Viva 1.94 %
I Verdi Corsi 1.15 %
A Manca Naziunale 0.65 %
Independent, ‘51 femmes pour la Corse de l’an 2000’ 3.56 %
Provence Mouvement Région Provence (Partit Occitan) 1.13 % 1.29 %
Catalunya Energies Catalanes (Unitat Catalana & Partit per Catalunya) 2.53 %
Côte Independent, ‘Combat Côte d’Azur’ 2.38 %
d’Azur Independent, ‘Oui à une nouvelle région’ 0.87 %
Occitania Partit Occitan 1.07 % 2.31 %
Pays Abertzaleen Batasuna 3.78 %
Basque Union pour le Pays Basque 1.82 %
Savoie Ligue Savoisienne 5.16 % 6.05 % 1
Mouvement Région Savoie 3.60 %
France Parti Fédéraliste 1.16 % 3.87 %
Source: Le Monde.
* Total percentage of votes in all constituencies where the list participated.
** Percentage of votes in département where the party’s result was highest if present in more than one
département.

A widespread issue in the programmes of a number of regionalist parties in France is

the regional division used in the 1982 regionalisation and the boundaries chosen. The Union
Démocratique Bretonne fights for the inclusion of the département Loire-Atlantique in the
région Brittany, a claim based on historic grounds, the boundaries of the pre-revolutionary
Duchy and Province of Brittany. Abertzaleen Batasuna and Union pour le Pays Basque are in
favour of a separate département Pays Basque, within France or with the case of Abertzaleen
Batasuna as a stepping stone for an independent Basque Country. Alsace d’Abord - which
was to be renamed Mouvement Régionaliste d’Alsace after the 1998 regional elections, and in
2002 again Alsace d’Abord – and l’Union du Peuple Alsacien want a merger of the two

6
departments of the région Alsace to create a ‘Grande Assemblée Régionale Alsacienne’.
Énergies Catalanes – an electoral cooperation between the Partit per Catalunya and Unitat
Catalana, which developed into a new party in 2002, Bloc Català – claimed a Catalan région
in France, “per separar-nos del Llenguadoc” (Énergies Catalanes, 1998). The same applies
for the short- lived independent lists ‘Oui à une nouvelle région’ and ‘Combat Côte d’Azur’
that wanted a separate région Côte d’Azur, or a decrease of the powers for the existing région
Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur (PACA) concentrated in Marseille.
The strongest protest against the regional division comes from the Savoy. For a
number of years the Mouvement Région Savoie, founded in 1972, has agitated for the two
départements Savoie and Haute-Savoie to get their own région instead of being part of
Rhône-Alpes. Since 1994 the Ligue Savoisienne has added to this regionalist voice a claim for
independence. A strong regionalist discourse in Savoy is a relatively recent phenomenon.
Savoy was added relatively recently to France, in 1860 after a history as an independent
Duchy and connections with Piedmont and Sardinia. The Ligue Savoisienne motivates its
claim for independence on the treaty of annexation, which it considers ‘not legitimate’. As
one of the few regionalist parties in France the Ligue Savoisienne obtained a seat in the
regional council in 1998. No other regionalist party outside Corsica managed that in the
elections of 1986 and 1992, and in 1998 only Alsace d’Abord, which combined its regionalist
discourse with a campaign on an anti- immigration platform. This new position of regionalism
in Savoy is backed by opinion polls by CSA-TMO that measured in 2000 whether people in
Corsica, Brittany and Savoy were keen or not on full independence for their region. Perhaps
surprisingly, Savoy scored highest, with 23 % of the respondents in favour of independence 4 .
This indicates that the message of the Ligue Savoisienne has been picked up quickly. But
also, that the percentage of votes a single- issue party, such as a regionalist party, receives is
no perfect indicator of the total public support for their main issue.
In contrast to this seemingly fast development of regionalism in Savoy is the position
of regionalism in Occitania. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when
regionalism was focused on language and cultural issues, Occitania was, together with
Brittany, the frontrunner of regionalism in France. During the wave of militant regionalism in
the 1960s and 70s Occitania also played a prominent role. However, electorally Occitan
regionalism never has been successful. The establishment of a regional structure with
territories of a completely different scale than Occitania, and the introduction of regional
elections seems not to have stimulated Occitan regionalism. At the regional elections of 1998
the Partit Occitan just managed to get more than 1 % of the votes in the constituencies where
it participated, and at the legislatives of 2002 the results were even lower (0.51 %). Political
regionalism in Occitania appears to be the dog that never barked. Still, in overviews of
‘homelands’ of regional minorities (Williams, 1982, 1993, Keating, 1998) Occitania is mostly
included, but Savoy is not.
Additionally to the regionalist parties there is in France, participating at the regional,
national and European elections since 1998, a state-wide federalist party, which aims for more
autonomy for the regions and a federal France and Europe, the Parti Fédéraliste. This is of
course no regionalist party in the sense that it represents one single region, but its political
programme is typically regionalist in content. Apart from a transfer of autonomy to the
regions 5 the Parti Fédéraliste aims for the recognition and defence of regional languages and
cultures. At the regional elections of 1998 it campaigned using slogans such as “La Franche-
Comté n’a pas besoin de Paris pour batir son avenir” (Franche-Comté does not need Paris to
build its future). The party is based in Franche-Comté, but had candidates in 93 constituencies
all over the country for the législatives of 2002. Until now their election results have remained
meagre, rarely reaching above the 1 % mark.

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 The introduction of regional elections with a system of proportional representation
seems to have offered an opportunity for regionalists to appear on the democratic arena in
more territories, without leading to spectacular election results. At the législatives of 1981
only in three areas regionalist parties were present (Alsace, Brittany and Occitania), without
any chance of getting a deputy in the Assemblée Nationale. The electoral system made it
extremely difficult for the regionalist parties to even seriously compete for a seat at the
nationa l or departmental level. Therefore they competed elections as small partners of larger
parties, ecologists for instance, or not at all. Cooperation with Les Verts in 1989 even yielded
a seat in the European Parliament for Max Simeoni of the Unione di u Populu Corsu.
Although there is by now an impressive number of regionalist parties in France 6 , most
are marginal when looking at their electoral results. Only Alsace d’Abord, Corsica Nazione
and the Ligue Savoisienne succeeded in reaching the electoral threshold and get
representation in the regional councils in 1998, although Edmond Simeoni’s Unione di u
Populu Corsu got close, needing just 30 more votes to reach the next round. Only in Corsica
the total percentage of votes for regionalists really carries some weight, 20.89 % in 1998. But
due to the failure to create a stable regionalist party system in Corsica (Olivesi, 1998) the
regionalist votes are scattered between a large number of parties. There has been a large
number of splits and short- lived cooperations among the Corsican regionalist parties, and as
much attempts to create one definite united Corsican nationalist party. This applies for the
clandestine organisations as much as for the democratic parties.
Although in Brittany there is a large number of regionalist cultural organisations, a
lively debate on regionalist issues, and a stable and continuous presence of regionalists at the
regional and national elections, electoral results remain meagre. At the legislative elections of
2002 there were three regionalist parties in Brittany presenting candidates – apart from the
Union Démocratique Bretonne also Frankiz Breizh and Mouvement Régionaliste de Bretagne
– all aiming for more autonomy for Brittany or a federalisation of France, and differing more
in their position on a right- left scale, than on their regionalist issues.
The same applies to Alsace, were the main difference between the Mouvement
Régionaliste d’Alsace (MRA) and the Union du Peuple Alsacien (UPA) is that the MRA is
close to extreme rightwing parties as the Front National or the Mouvement National
Républican, and the UPA has a more left wing signature. Both the MRA and the Mouvement
Régionaliste Bretonne display the somewhat paradoxical phenomenon of regionalist parties
that become brothers in arms with anti- immigration nationalist parties stressing the French
identity has brought more votes in Alsace than in Brittany. Finally, it is striking that in those
regions where there is a choice between regionalist parties that claim different degrees of
autonomy - Corsica, Savoy and the Basque Country - the more radical parties aiming for
independence are clearly the most successful in terms of votes obtained.
As described above, the boundaries of the régions themselves became an issue of
dispute. Most of the regionalist parties, or independent lists in 1998, represent a territory
which coincides with a political région, in Alsace, Brittany, Corsica and Provence, although a
few remarks should be made. The région Brittany ‘misses’ Loire-Atlantiq ue, although the
political région carries the same name as used by regionalists, Bretagne. Provence-Alpes-
Côte-d’Azur includes the Côte d’Azur which is not considered part of Provence. Furthermore,
the Mouvement Région Provence is in fact a regional division of the Partit Occitan, presenting
candidates at elections under its own label and celebrating the Provençal language, culture
and territory instead of the larger Occitan one. Other regionalists represent territories which
do not have a région, in the Savoy and Occitania (and in 1998 two small lists in Côte d’Azur),
or which are linked with a larger region in Spain (Basque Country and Catalonia). In sum, the
ten parties and two independent lists in Alsace, Brittany, Corsica and PACA - combining two
thirds of the regionalist votes in France and seven of the eight seats gained in 1998 - had one

8
of the administrative regions as their ‘homeland’, and are included in the comparison with the
spread of regional identities below.

Regional identities of inha bitants of the régions

Both features of regional identity as elaborated on by Paasi, attachment to the region of the
inhabitants, and the image of the region, have been included in recent public surveys in
France. As noted above, not all regionalist move ments take existing administrative regions as
their territory – on the contrary, some have as their main goal the change of the existing
regional structure. On the other hand, most of the 22 politico-administrative régions have no
regionalist party. There is though in all régions a substantial sense of regional identity among
its inhabitants, based on data from the Observatoire Interrégional du Politique (OIP) (see
Figure 1). Only in the régions Ile-de France and Centre the percentage of respondents that
feels very much attached to their region is below 40 %. This feeling of attachment to the
region is clearly the strongest in Corsica, with nearly 80 % of the Corsicans identifying
strongly with their region. Also in Brittany the score for this indicator of regional identity is
far above average. Other regions with a relatively strong sense of regional attachment among
their inhabitants are PACA, Languedoc-Roussillon, Alsace, Midi-Pyrénées and Nord-Pas-de-
Calais. Among those are the politico-administrative régions where regionalist parties are at
least present with candidates at the 1998 regional elections (Corsica, Alsace, Brittany and
Provence). Furthermore, it is striking that all those régions with a relatively high regional
identity among the inhabitants are peripheral or border regions. This does not offer a perfect
correlation, because other border regions such as Aquitaine, Rhône-Alpes and Franche-Comté
do not score particularly high.
When comparing the strength of the regional identity with the natio nal identity, the
image is not really the reverse. Not all regions with a high regional identity combine this with
a low national identity. Overall, the scores for the national identity are clearly higher than the
regional ones, which means that most Frenc hmen feel stronger attached to France than to their
region. This is especially the case in two central regions with a low sense of regional identity,
Ile-de-France and Centre, where the scores for national identity in Figure 1 are nearly or even
more than double those of the regional identity. But also in most regions with a stronger
regional identity the national identity is higher. The only exceptions are Corsica and Brittany,
where the regional identity tops the national identity, although also Alsace comes close. The
difference between Corsica and Brittany is huge though. Whereas in Corsica the percentage of
respondents identifying very much with their region is almost twice as high as that for
identification with France (78.3 % against 40.1%), the proportions are very different for
Brittany (65.0 % against 56.3%). This shows that in Brittany and Alsace, and in the rest
of mainland France, the regional and national identity are not felt as mutually exclusive. They
are the sources of complementary identifications. This becomes even clearer when also taking
the more moderate category of responses of ‘fairly attached’ into account. In Brittany and
Alsace 92.5 % and 88.9 % of the respondents felt either fairly or very attached to their region,
and 91.8 % and 94.0 % felt fairly or very attached to France. This means that a massive
majority feels a sense of belonging to both territorial levels, to their region and to France. For
Corsica these figures are 94.5 % and 77.9 %, still showing much ‘overlap’, but also a much
more significant group that regards their regional Corsican identity as excluding a French
identity.
At first sight the strength of the regional identity among inhabitants seems a rather
good indicator of electoral performance of regionalist parties; Corsica scores highest, and
Brittany and Alsace are amongst the highest scoring regions. But, the differences between

9
Figure 1 Regional and national identity of inhabitants of the régions, 1999.
Percentage of respondents with a very strong identification with the region and percentage
with a very strong identification with France.

Corse
Bretagne
PACA
Languedoc-R.
Alsace
Midi-Pyrénées
Nord-P.d.C.
Limousin
Lorraine
Franche-Comté
Rhône-Alpes
Aquitaine
B-Normandie
Poitou-Char.
Picardie
Bourgogne
Pays-d.l.-Loire
Regional
Centre
identity
Ile-de-France
France (total) National
identity
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Source: Observatoire Interrégional du Politique (1999, 1997).

The question asked was : “Pouvez-vous me dire si vous êtes très attaché, plutôt attaché, pas très attaché ou pas
attaché du tout à votre région/ la France? ”
* Rhône-Alpes was not included in 1999, data from 1997 used.
** No data for the régions Auvergne, Champagne-Ardenne and Haute-Normandie.
*** Average for the whole of France is based on 18 régions included in 1999, without Auvergne, Champagne-
Ardenne, Haute-Normandie and Rhône-Alpes.

Brittany and Alsace and certain other regions are not convincing at all. In fact, PACA has a
stronger regional identity amongst its inhabitants than Alsace, while the results of the
Provençal regionalists of the Mouvement Région Provence are much lower than those in
Alsace. There is no simple division on this variable with a group of regions with populations
with a strong sense of regional identity and active regionalist parties, and a weak sense of
regional identity in the other regions. The addition of a comparison with the national identity
is helpful here. It is in the regions where not only the regional identity is felt the strongest in

10
absolute numbers, but also in proportion to the national identity, that the electoral results of
regionalist parties are the highest.

Identities of the regions

The analysis of regional identities in France based on the data of Figure 1, concentrating on
the identity of individuals, resembles the way the concept of regional identity is used often in
relation to the politicisation of territorial communities. As mentioned above, Paasi (1986)
distinguishes the institutionalisation of a region as the process during which a territorial unit –
in this case on the sub-national level – becomes established and receives importance in a
spatial hierarchy of territorial consciousness. Paasi uses the concept of structures of
expectations for the relationship between region and inhabitants (and outsiders). Structures of
expectation form an essential part of the expression of the spatial role of a region, based on
knowledge and beliefs concerning the features of a region, of the legitimation of this role of
the region, and of the establishment of the past (and also the future) as a common frame of
reference for the inhabitants of a region (Paasi, 1986, pp.122-4). The figures used above only
reflect the strength of the regional identity of the inhabitants, not its characteristics or type.
Paasi suggests that the images of the region held by inhabitants reflect this connection. This
leads to the analysis of the formation and content of images of a region and the value of the
identity of a region for understanding the politicisation of territorial communities.
It is an arduous task to find and classify the images of a region, and trace how they
have come into being. With regard to a distinction between insider’s and outsider’s images,
the former will be more relevant for a study of the support of regionalists in a region. The
application of a quantitative method based on standardised mass public surveys carries a lot of
restrictions concerning the detailed reproduction of existing images among the regions’
inhabitants. The categories used in Figure 2 are therefore crude. The results are the percentage
of all responses that an image was picked by a respondent for his or her region in the first or
second instance among a number of options offered.
The most popular image, in nearly all regions, was that of ‘a site of history and
culture’. Around a third of the respondents thought that was a good description of their region.
This category is prioritised most in Brittany, Corsica, and Alsace, indeed the regions with a
strong sense of regional identity among the inhabitants and regionalist parties present, but also
in Bourgogne and Lorraine, where this is not the case. There are two other strong images of
the region that can be related to a potential for political regionalism: the region as ‘human
community’ and the region as ‘site of political debate’. In contrast, the images of the region as
just a ‘grouping of départements’ or as a ‘level of administration’ are indicative of a minimal
institutionalisation of the region and a lack of importance being attached to the region as
political or social category. The same message is send out by those not having an opinion on
the image of the region, although this might also be an answer given for other reasons.
Remarkable is the difference that exists between the regions with both a strong
regional identity among their inhabitants and regionalist movements, Corsica, Brittany and
Alsace. A similarity is that all three regions have relatively low scores on the ‘weak’ images
‘grouping of départements’ and ‘level of administration’. In Corsica the images picked most
are those that describe Corsica as a ‘site of history and culture’, a ‘human community’ and a
‘site of political debate’. The strength of these expressions in Corsica is even more apparent
when comparing the scores with the French average. Then, especially the existence of the
region as a site of political debate stands out. The combination of these three images and the
near absence of people that see Corsica as a grouping of departments or just an administrative
level, seems indicative of the existence of structures of expectation that recognise and

11
legitimise a Corsican regionalist discourse. Corsica is not just a functional region, but also
regarded as community and a political space. This is in line with the considerable combined
regionalist electoral results.

Figure 2 Image of the regions.

Percentage of times an option is picked as either first or second preference, 1999.
Categories of images are: ‘Site of political debate’, ‘Site of history and culture’, ‘Human
community’, ‘Site of economic development’, ‘Level of administration’, and ‘Grouping of
départements’.

Corse
Bretagne
Alsace
PACA
Nord-P.d.C.
Languedoc-R.
Aquitaine
Franche-Comté
Lorraine
No opinion
B.-Normandie
Midi-Pyrénées Départements
Poitou-Char.
Administration
Picardie
Bourgogne Economic
Limousin development
Ile-de-France
Community
Pays-d.l.-Loire
Centre Culture &
Rhône-Alpes history
France (total)
Political
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Source: Observatoire Interrégional du Politique, 1999, 1998.

The question asked was: “En pensant à la Région …., quel est, parmi les mots et les expressions suivants, celui
qui vous paraît le mieux la définir? Et ensuite? – un lieu d’histoire et de culture; - un regroupement de
départements; - un lieu de développement économique; - un échelon administratif; - une communauté humaine; -
un lieu de débat politique.”
* Average for the whole of France is based on 18 régions included in 1999, without Auvergne, Champagne-
Ardenne, Haute-Normandie and Rhône-Alpes.
** Rhône-Alpes was not included in 1999, data from 1998 used.
*** No data for the régions Auvergne, Champagne-Ardenne and Haute-Normandie.

12
 Brittany is predominantly seen as a site of history and culture. This image matches
features such as the regional Breton language, the elements of Celtic culture and history, and
the history of Brittany as a Duchy and Province before the French Revolution. The
descriptions of Brittany as human community and site of economic development are picked
just above average. The clearest contrast with Corsica is the virtual absence of Bretons who
regard their region as a site of political debate. This produces a combined image of a region
with a very distinctive culture and history which is seen as a community, and whose
inhabitants have a strong regional identity, but is not regarded as a political arena. This fits
with the existence of numerous organisations that celebrate the Breton culture and identity,
and at the same time with the low political election results of regionalist parties and absence
of any party claiming independence 7 .
The picture for Alsace is different again. The image of Alsace as a historical and
cultural place is felt strongly, but not as strongly as in Brittany or Corsica. Much more priority
than in those regions is given to the region as site of economic development. Alsace is indeed
one of the wealthiest regions of France, with a relatively large number of large firms (INSEE,
2002). It is much less seen as a human community. Distinguishing it from Brittany is the
image of Alsace as a site of political debate. This may not be high in absolute numbers, but in
relative terms nearly twice the national average, and after Corsica and Ile-de-France (as the
location of the French national political debate) the third region on this expression. Combined,
Alsace has not got the strong picture of a human community with a rich history and culture as
Brittany, and not the combination of a sense of community with a strong political connection
as Corsica.
The existence of a distinctive type of image of the region is not always combined with
the existence of a strong regional identity among its inhabitants. For instance, Rhône-Alpes
has a particularly dominant image as a site of economic development. This image is
explicitly, and apparently successfully, promoted by regional authorities – for instance as a
member of the high technology and dynamic economic alliance of the ‘Four Motors of
Europe’ with Baden-Württemberg, Lombardy and Catalonia. And although Rhône-Alpes is
often named with respect to the appearing ‘new regionalism’ (Keating, 1998), there is no
Rhônalpin regionalist party yet.

Table 2 Correlations between percentage of votes for regionalist parties (1998) and images of
the regions
Site of political Site of history Human Site of Level of Grouping of
debate and culture community economic administration départements
development
Regionalist vote 0.855 0.537 0.432 -0.407 -0.675 -0.807

The statistical correlations between the various images of the regions and the electoral
performance of regionalist parties (see table 2) confirm that a perception of the region as a site
of economic development, or a lack of that, is no basis for regionalism on its own. There is no
strong correlation between the image of the region as site of economic development and
voting for and presence of regionalist parties. In contrast, there is a positive correlation
between regionalist voting and the images of the region as a site of political debate and as a
site of history and culture, and a somewhat less strong, with the image of a human
community. On the other hand, there is a negative correlation with the region as ‘level of
administration’ and as ‘grouping of départements’. These correlations confirm that the images
of the region as a site of political debate, history and culture and a human community are a
basis for political regionalism.

13
Table 3 Correlations between percentage of votes for regionalist parties (1998), regional and
national identities of inhabitants and image of the region.
Regional identity of National identity of Image of region
inhabitants inhabitants (political, history & culture
and community)
Regionalist vote 0.667 -0.854 0.827

The scores on these three images combined, can be taken as a variable and its
correlation with regionalist voting combined with those of regional and national identities of
the inhabitants (see table 3). The correlation between this image of the region and regionalist
voting is strong, and stronger than between regional identity of the inhabitants and regionalist
voting. Even stronger, but negative, is the correlation between national identity and the
electoral performance of regionalists. According to a regression analysis with those four
variables, the three independent variables combined give a good explanation of the
differences between the French régions in votes for regionalist parties, with a coefficient of
determination R² of 0.911. Unfortunately, a comparison through a regression analysis of the
explaining value of each of the three independent variables is not feasible because of their
high multicollinearity. However, the strong correlations between the three independent
variables in table 3 and the spread of electoral regionalism indicates that there is reason to
take all three into account when looking at regional identities and political regionalism.

Conclusion

In four of the twenty-two French régions that were given some autonomy, partly to
accommodate claims of regionalist movements, there are regionalist parties that represent a
territory (approximately) coinciding with the territory of the région. Only in Corsica there is a
substantial electoral result for the regionalists, although many parties want a slice of the cake,
and the results are therefore scattered, and success in the sense of seats obtained restricted. In
Brittany and Alsace, there is also a stable presence of regionalists, although with lesser results
and more modest autonomy goals. The Provence has the Mouvement Région Provence, but
with electoral results as marginal as the Partit Occitan it is part of. The main other regionalist
party in recent years is the Ligue Savoisienne, followed by parties in the French parts of the
Basque Country and Catalonia, with a much smaller following than their Spanish
counterparts.
Compared with the electoral performance of regionalist parties in Spain and the
United Kingdom, the results in Corsica are comparable to those in Galicia, Aragon and Wales,
but less than in the Basque Country, Catalonia, Navarre, the Canary Isles and Scotland. The
scores in other regions in France are matched by a range of Spanish regions. The most
distinctive difference however is the fragmentation of the regionalist movements in France, in
Corsica, but also in other regions, especially compared to situation in the United Kingdom.
The data on the regional identity of the inhabitants (Figure 1) demonstrate that it is
impossible to make a strict distinction between regions that are to be recognised as having a
particular regional identity, and areas where this is absent. Data reflecting the subjective
notion of a feeling of belonging or attachment to a region among individuals, do not give
cause to state that, for instance, Brittany has a distinct regional identity and Pays de la Loire
does not. It is perhaps better to treat regional identity as a continuum, with some territories
having a strong regional identity among their inhabitants, some where those are very weak,
and the rest somewhere in between those extremes. As mentioned, an individual has a set of
attributes to identify with, and only in Corsica and Brittany the region is in this sense
important for more people than the nation (France) is. When looking at all régions, regionalist

14
parties have been formed in the régions with a relatively strong regional identity among their
inhabitants. However, the differences between Brittany and Alsace, and certain other régions
are small. Only the gap between Corsica, with a large regionalist voting percentage, and the
regions with modest electoral results (Brittany and Alsace) is convincing.
The difference on the subjective image of the region between Corsica on the one hand
and Brittany and Alsace on the other, is at least as convincing. Corsica is not just perceived as
a region of history and culture, but also very much as a human community and a political
arena. Brittany and Alsace rely much more on an image of history and culture and of
economic development. The latter is less than the former a dimension that regionalists
monopolise politically. Rather than positioning regions on a scale of strong or weak regional
identities, these images of the regions add more information on the relationship between
individual and territory. Although large proportions of the inhabitants of most regions feel
strongly attached to their region, all but Corsica, Alsace and Brittany also are to substantial
parts of their population foremost a ‘grouping of départements’ or a ‘level of administration’;
images that do not reflect a strong institutionalisation of the region or an urgency for regional
autonomy.
This crude overview of images of the regions also sho ws that nearly all regions are
regarded as places of a particular history and culture. The existence of a regional language
may be an element of this image, but only partly. Bourgogne, a Kingdom and Duchy in the
Middle Ages, for instance, scores high on this category, but has no recognised regional
language. The ‘objective’ feature of a regional language has been shown to give strong
correlations with electoral regionalism (Hearl et al., 1996), but covers not all cases. Taking
cases outside France as example, Padania has no regional language of its own, and for
Scottish regionalism Gaelic and Scots are mere symbols of cultural distinctiveness than actual
characteristics setting the Scottish population apart from the rest of Great Britain. On the other
side, Friesland has a widely spoken regional language, but low electoral results of its
regionalist party, the Fryske Nasjonale Partij. The problematic nature of selecting a regional
language ‘objectively’ and using it as a determinant of regionalism is illustrated by Savoy.
Whereas Savoy regionalist have been the second regionalist force in France behind Corsica
recently in terms of election results, there is no officially recognised regional Savoy
language 8 . There is however a dialect, Francoprovençal, which is spoken in eastern France,
that is claimed by the Ligue Savoisienne as their regional language. They have also started to
promote a division of Francoprovençal, the patois Savoyard or Savoyor as a regional
language. One could argue that the choice not to include Francoprovençal with the recognised
regional languages was a political decision coloured by the earlier existence of regionalist
movements. On the other hand, there are dozens of patois in France (Gascon, Provençal,
Franc-comtois, Normand, Gallo, etc.), which could potentially be claimed as symbols of
cultural distinctiveness in a regionalist discourse.
Within France, Brittany, Alsace and Corsica, among others, all are territories with a
recognised and much used regional language. The electoral results of their regionalist parties
are very different though. All carry a strong image of a distinct history and culture, but it is
the image of community and politics, and a strong sense of regional identity among its
inhabitants – much stronger than their national identity – that sets Corsica apart. On its own
the sense of identity among the inhabitants of the region appears not to tell the complete story,
especially not for setting apart regions with smaller regionalist parties, Alsace and Brittany,
and regions without political regionalism. A comparison with the national identity among the
inhabitants and combination with the image that inhabitants have of their region offers a
completer picture. It seems that including the subjective identity of the regio n in an analysis
of a regionalist party’s electoral success makes the use of the whole concept of regional
identity as a determinant more useful. The somewhat crude quantitative data on the images of

15
the regions give cause though for more research, qualitative and in other cases than France, on
the concept of regional identity and the link between individual and territory.

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1
This voting system has been changed in 2003, and the 2004 regional elections will be held over two rounds in
all régions, with a huge 10% threshold in the first round.
2
The overseas territories are excluded here. France has a number of Départements d’outre-mer (Dom) and
Territoires d’outre-mer (Tom), mainly in the Caribbean, Pacific and Indian Ocean, which are part of the French
state.
3
Unlike the other régions Corsica has a complicated two-round electoral system, although still a system of
proportional representation. Since 1992 Corsica for the regional elections Corsica is treated as one constituency,
not divided per département. If one list of candidates obtains more than 50 % of the votes at the first round, it
gets three seats, and the 48 other seats are distributed among all lists getting above the 5 % threshold. When no
list obtains an absolute majority, like in 1998, all lists with more than 5 % of the votes in the first round continue
to a second round, where again the winner automatically gets 3 seats. The voting percentages refer to the first
round, but Corsica Nazione obtained 5 seats in the second round.
4
The results presented by CSA in cooperation with Le Messager de Haute-Savoie are as follows:
Question: Et seriez-vous tout à fait favorable, assez favorable, assez opposé ou tout à fait opposé à ce que la
Savoie et la Haute-Savoie deviennent indépendantes ?
Ensemble des habitants de Savoie et de Haute-Savoie
Favorable 23 %
Opposed 74 %
No opinion 3%
Total 100 %
N 537
Source:CSA-TMO (2000).
5
As regions that should be given a federal status in France, the Parti Fédéraliste takes the existing 22 political
régions, to which it adds a separate region for Savoy, a single combined one for Basse and Haute-Normandie,
and one for ‘Ligerie’, consisting of parts of the regions Centre and Pays-de-la-Loire.
6
The number of regionalist movements is of course much larger than the parties that participated in the 1998
regional elections, and also a number of political parties did not present candidates. Also, since 1998 a number of
new parties have been founded or old ones merged, some of them participating in the 2002 general elections. For
instance, Bretagne also has Emgann, Frankiz Breizh, the Mouvement Régionaliste de Bretagne and the Parti
Breton, in Catalonia Unitat Catalana and Partit per Catalunya merged to form the Bloc Català and the Spanish
Catalonian and Basque parties Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, Partido Nacionalista Vasco and Eusko
Alkartasuna participated in the 2002 general elections. In Corsica the Unione di u Populu Corsu (UPC), existing
since 1977, merged with the successor of Corsica Viva, Mossa Naziunale, in the new Partitu di a Nazione Corsa.
7
There are Breton regionalist political parties that claim independence, Emgann and Parti pour l’Organisation
d’une Bretagne Libre (POBL), that do not contest regional, national or European elections, and therefore cannot
be included with the political parties that try to reach their goals and mobilise public support through democratic

17
means. The same applies for the new regionalist party Parti Breton, which, though founded in 2000, has not yet
presented itself at political elections.
8
Regional languages officially recognised by the department of education are, according to the 1951 ‘loi
Deixonne’ breton, basque, catalan and occitan (Journal Officiel, 1951), and since an amendment from 1974 corse
(Journal Officiel, 1974). Alsacien and flemmish are left out because German and Dutch are foreign languages
which can be taught at schools.

18