They are almost all run by the Socialist Party. So, predictably, that party tends to defend its record, while the UMP attacks it. As far as positive measures are concerned, the UMP will as usual stress lowering taxes and encouraging private enterprise, while the PS will offer more concrete public projects.
Europe Ecologie (not just les Verts, this is a broader coalition in which, fortunately, les Verts are opening out instead of concentrating on their internal battles) offer a fairly full platform including increase in regional powers, in favour of public services and public transport, renewable energy, "green jobs", "green" farming, localisation, management of territorial problems like urban sprawl. They have by far the fullest bill of proposals (I'm looking at the tracts put out in my region, Midi-Pyrénées).
The most often used trick is to transfer social policies and other expensive burden, like highway maintenance, from the state to the regions, but not the tax receipt income that allows to finance all of this.
In France, regions cannot levy income taxes, it's a privilege of the central government: only a handful of taxes are for the local governments, like property taxes, or the soon to be defunct "professional tax" that was levied on businesses [Sarko decided to suppress this tax, to relieve his business friends and to spite the regions' executives].
Transferring expense burden from the state to the (mostly Socialist) regions allowed our president to implement his tax cuts policies, banskter relief plans, neo-colonial adventures in Afghanistan, etc... Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
Hm... which the French state would have allowed to crumble without regionalisation. As it depends on subsidies, the question is who is willing and able to fork it out. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
SNCF is definitely behind its European peers in what's possible with the new vehicles even on mainlines, what with the slow spread of regular interval timeplans, and the policy of limited stop services. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
