Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur


Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, sometimes known as Région Sud, is one of the eighteen administrative regions of France, located at the far southeastern point of the mainland. The main prefecture and largest city is Marseille, France's second largest city proper after Paris and the 2nd largest urban area when combined with Aix-en-Provence with over 1.9 million residents.

History

The region is roughly coterminous with the former French province of Provence, with the addition of the following adjacent areas: the former papal territory of Avignon, known as Comtat Venaissin; the former Sardinian-Piedmontese County of Nice annexed in 1860, whose coastline is known in English as the French Riviera and in French as the Côte d'Azur; and the southeastern part of the former French province of Dauphiné, in the French Alps. Previously known by the acronym PACA, the region adopted the name Région Sud as a commercial name or nickname in December 2017.

Geography

It encompasses six départements in Southeastern France: Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Alpes-Maritimes, Bouches-du-Rhône, Hautes-Alpes, Var and Vaucluse. It is bounded to the east by the France–Italy border, to the south by the Mediterranean Sea and by the Principality of Monaco, to the north by Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and to the west by Occitanie, with the Rhône marking its westernmost border. According to the 2015 census, 5,007,977 people live in the region.

Symbols

The region logotype displays the coat of arms created in the 1990s and which combines the coats of arms of the old provinces making up Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. The region's economy is the third largest in France, just behind Île-de-France and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.

Demographics

Population

As of 2020, the population of the region was 5,098,666; Marseille and its metropolitan area is the most populous in the region with a city population of 870,321, an urban population of 1,618,479 and a metropolitan population of 1,879,601. Marseille is the second largest city in France after Paris, and has the third largest metropolitan population, behind those of Paris and Lyon respectively.
Nice is host to the second-largest population concentration in the region, with a city population of 344,875 and an urban population of 1,005,230, making it the fifth-most populous city in France.

Languages

The absolute majority of the population speaks French but many regional and foreign languages are present in the region.
The 1999 Census, which included a complementary survey asking for the mother tongue of the respondents, gave results on the most spoken mother tongues in Provence after French:
According to a 2009 study, nearly 40% of all newborns in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur in 2007 had at least one parent of an immigrant background, mostly Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Maghrebi. This is the second-highest rate after Île-de-France, where the figure was around 56%. Since the 1960s, the region has been a major immigration centre from France and into France, mostly due to Northern French and to Mediterranean immigration from countries such as Portugal, Spain, Italy, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.

Departments

Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur is divided into 6 departments. These are Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Hautes-Alpes, Alpes-Maritimes, Bouches-du-Rhône, Var and Vaucluse.
CodeDepartmentAreaPopulationPrefectureSub-prefecturePopulation density
04Alpes-de-Haute-ProvenceDigne-les-BainsBarcelonnette, Castellane and Forcalquier
05Hautes-AlpesGapBriançon
06Alpes-MaritimesNiceGrasse
13Bouches-du-RhôneMarseilleAix-en-Provence, Arles and Istres
83VarToulonBrignoles and Draguignan
84VaucluseAvignonApt and Carpentras

Major cities

The largest cities in the region are Marseille, Nice, Toulon and Aix-en-Provence, each with a population exceeding 100,000 inhabitants at the 1999 census. After Marseille, Nice is the second most populous city in the region, with a city proper population of about 350,000 and an urban population exceeding 1 million.
Marseille has an urban area of 2 million inhabitants and is the largest and capital city of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. It is also the second-most populated city in France, just behind Paris, and the city with the third-largest metropolitan population in France, behind Paris and Lyon, respectively.
Along with Nice and Marseille, the region is also made internationally popular with Cannes, a city that, despite its comparatively small size, hosts the annual Cannes Film Festival, which has highly popularized the region. In addition, Arles has become renowned as the city where Vincent van Gogh lived and painted 300 paintings.
Toulon is a large military harbour on the Mediterranean coast and is home to a French naval base. It is the capital of the Var department in the region. Also, Aix-en-Provence has long been a university town and, to this day, remains the most important educational centre in the region.
Below is a list of the most populated cities in the region along with their population according to the most recent census:
This region has a total area of. It has a wide variety of landscapes, from the Alps mountains to plains, lakes such as the Gignoux Lake, and coastal areas like Nice and Marseille, which form the majority of the land area. The region has a Mediterranean coastline on the south, on which the majority of its population lives. It borders Italy to the east, Monaco in the south-east, and the French regions of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes to the north and Occitanie to the west. The Rhône, Durance, Var and Arc rivers run through the region. The borders were unaffected by the 2016 French regional reforms.
This region is famous for the Côte d'Azur, which spans the coastal cities of Nice, Saint-Laurent-du-Var, Antibes, Juan-les-Pins, Cannes, Mandelieu-la-Napoule, Fréjus, Saint-Raphaël, Sainte-Maxime and Saint-Tropez; and on the Rhône river, the city of Avignon which is surrounded by medieval stone walls.

Regional government and politics

The Regional Council of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur is the legislative body of the region. The President of the Regional Council has been Renaud Muselier formerly of The Republicans since 2017.

Political tendencies

In recent years, The Republicans have gained strong support in the region. Following the 2015 regional election, the party took control of the regional executive, which had been previously controlled by the Socialist Party. Christian Estrosi succeeded Michel Vauzelle as President of the Regional Council. The 2015 election was also a show of force for the National Front, led by Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, which garnered over 45% of the vote in the second round. The Socialist Party lost all representation at the regional level. The French Communist Party historically had several strongholds in the region from the 1920s onward, including Aubagne, Draguignan, La Ciotat, Beausoleil, Martigues, Gardanne, Arles as well as some suburbs of Marseille, although not enough to win regional elections; the party usually received about 10% of the vote. In the 2002 presidential election, this declined to 4%. In 2007, it dropped below 2%. Nowadays the main competition in regional politics is between the right-wing The Republicans and the far-right National Rally. In the second round of the 2021 regional election, The Republicans received 57.3% of the vote against the National Rally's 42.7% with a list led by Thierry Mariani. The Socialist Party, present in the first round on a joint list led by Europe Ecology – The Greens, failed again to win any seats. The 2022 presidential election marked the first time a far-right candidate won a majority of the vote in the second round in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Marine Le Pen won a majority of the vote in three of the six departments ; her respective scores in the remaining three were superior to her national total.

Presidential election results

In the second round of the last five presidential elections, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur voted as follows, with the winner of the election indicated in italics:
ElectionRegional winnerRegional runner-up
2022Marine Le Pen Emmanuel Macron
2017Emmanuel Macron Marine Le Pen
2012Nicolas Sarkozy François Hollande
2007Nicolas Sarkozy Ségolène Royal
2002Jacques Chirac Jean-Marie Le Pen

Economy

The regional income per capita is close to the French national average. Income inequality however is higher than in other regions: it is ranked the 2nd region most marked by inequalities after Île-de-France. The region is ranked fifth by GDP. Between 2007 and 2011, the region registered an average annual growth rate of 1.6% of GDP, close to the national average annual growth rate of 1.5%. Representing 7.2% of the national GDP over the period, the region is an important economic powerhouse.
In 2013, the region was responsible for 7.4% of national employment, with an employment rate of 60.9%. The region's employment success has a main characteristic: a higher concentration of elderly people than in the rest of France. Its GDP in 2015 was €168.2 billion while its per capita GDP was €30,863.
With more than 80% of regional employment in the service sector in 2016, the regional economy is mostly oriented towards service activities, above the national average of 75.8%. The sector grew between 2000 and 2010. The region concentrates more on commercial activities than financial ones than the rest of France does; principally because of tourism. 34% of the labour force is employed in retail and trade, against 32% at the national level. Moreover, the sector strongly contributes to growth of added value. The industrial sector, including construction, consists of 17.1% of regional employment, and contributes to 9.3% of gross added value, 3.2 points below the French level.
Employment in the agricultural sector is lower than the national level. However, it grew at a rate of 4.1% annually on average between 2000 and 2008, while the rest of the country saw its agricultural employment decline by 2.4%. According to the INSEE, the region is characterised by a strong presence of SMEs of less than 500 employees, which represent 91.2% of local businesses. Retail activities and tourism explain these figures.
The region's economy is dependent on tourism like most coastal places but also a majority of its economy is dependent on coastal activities. PACA is the 3rd richest French region and ranks 19th on the European scale. Its prosperity is mainly thanks to its attractiveness in terms of tourism; it is indeed one of the world's favourite tourist destinations, welcoming about 34 million tourists every year. The service sector predominates and provides many good jobs. In 2009, the region was admittedly affected by the global economic crisis, albeit to a small extent. It is the 2nd French region with regards to business startups.
If tourism is the driving force of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, the region is also a leader when it comes to innovative sectors, such as high technology, biotechnology, and microelectronics. Education, for its part, is well developed with the region's various universities, international schools, preparatory classes for specialist university courses, and engineering and business schools. All these institutions of higher learning help contribute to the human capital needed by the region to meet current technological challenges.
The region has a total GDP of €166.4 billion, the sixth highest in France. It has a per capita GDP of €30,864, slightly higher than the French average. According to a recent survey, a person living in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur has an average annual income of about €37,489.
The region has been part of the Alps–Mediterranean Euroregion since 10 July 2007.