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26 Regional Presidencies | ||
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 Presidents elected by region
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Regional elections were held in France on 16 March 1986. These were the first regional elections in France. French left-wing parties promised the establishment of regional governments in the 1970s. When the Socialist Party was elected to government in 1981, they implemented territorial reform. [1]
At stake were the presidencies of each of France's 26 régions , which, although lacking legislative autonomy, manage sizeable budgets.
The parliamentary right, led by the conservative Rally for the Republic and the centre-right Union for French Democracy won a landslide, winning 20 of 22 metropolitan regional presidencies. The Socialists only won the Limousin and the Nord-Pas de Calais region.
The election was conducted using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional representation, with a threshold of five percent of valid votes being applied regionally. [2]
