To bring this story to an end, here's the new map of the country.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/201...de-regions.php
This is France, so people will grumble till they get used to it and forget what was before.
Now the actual hard work is to push decentralization further. Obviously, in other words, the French people must find some convenient deals to make their national government give up on the many powers centralized over the Paris region (Île-de-France on that map) and get the regional administrations more independent and powerful. That is no easy business at all here.