The 2015 regional elections in France took place in an unusual context, happening as they did less than a month after the November 13 terrorist attacks on Paris and under the state of emergency. They also happened in a new institutional context in which the number of regions was reduced to 13 and the electoral system was changed. However, in many ways, these regional repeated old patterns: moderate-intensity campaign in the regions, nationalisation of the political debate, second-order election-type results. This paper will ask why, thirty years after the introduction of ‘decentralisation’ and after the powers of the regions were increased over the years, regional elections in France remain stubbornly second-order.
