u/AdrianSquared

Following the crises of the 50s and 60s, France became a federation of equal and culturally homogenous regions, or at least, that is what it says on paper... the truth is that much is still left to be desired for the peoples of France's different regions.

The "Pays de la Loire" - literally "Land of the Loire" in English - is one unpopular oddity in France's west. Not really having any cultural nor historical existence, many say that it was simply create to give Naunnt - its capital - increased influence on its immediate surroundings.

And since the 60s, calls have been growing louder for the reunification of Louère-Atantique with its historical land of Brittany, and Vendàie with its land of Poitou-Saintonge.

This culminated in 1986, as both the General Council of LA and the Regional Council of Brittany unanimously called for a referendum on their reunification, a loud signal Paris could simply not ignore. So the date was set for the first referendum on changing the borders of the internal regions of France.

On the 13th of August 1990, the 458th anniversary of Brittany's unification with France, the people of Brittany and Loire went to the polls, one for their region's expansion, the other for its dissolution.

In Brittany, constitutional changes were necessary to accept the condition of LA's unification: Gallo, whose speakers had been campaigning for official recognition ever since Brittany first became a region, finally became co-official with the celtic Breton language and Naunnt would be name co-capital along with the current Rennes.

In Loire, the dissolution plan wasn't without its opponents: the people of Mayenne and Sarthe, historically part of the province of Maine, were reluctant to agree to this region named after Angers, and mostly voted against the proposal, hoping to get a plan better suited to their regional identity.

But ultimately, in both regions, the proposal passed, and Loire was dissolved in favour of the new region of "Anjou" and the expansion of Brittany and Poitou-Saintonge, ending this historical oddity that had only existed for a little over 20 years.

Basic Lore: following the crises of the 1950s, the 1958 constitution of France contained provisions for major autonomy, planned to be used to calm colonial tensions, notably in Algeria and Cameroon. These would ultimately prove to be unsuccessful as both achieved independence in the 60s and the autonomous governments never got a chance to be fully implemented.

However, following May 68 and the start of the Basque and Corsican (~10 years earlier than OTL) conflicts, major constitutional amendments were passed, renaming the country to "French Federation" and establishing a new federal system, though still stopping short of redrafting a completely new constitution.

Now, over half a century after the beginning of this new system, the regional identities and languages of France are thriving, and while French remains the lingua franca of interregional communication, the language you hear in the streets of Toulouse, Lille or Brest is no longer French but rather Occitan, Picard and Breton respectively.

While most regions have adopted a new regional anthem to complement the national "Marseillaise", the regions of Champagne, Guadeloupe, Mayotte, Réunion, Saint-Pierre & Miquelon, Wallis and Futuna still have yet to choose one. A few regions are also bilingual, namely Lorraine (Lorrain and Lorraine Franconian), Brittany (Breton and Gallo), and Franche-Comté (Franc-Comtois and Arpitan), and therefore have duplicate entries in this chart in both their official languages.

(Also for the non-french people watching this post, those are all based on the poster of "La Marseillaise" that is quite commonly found in French schools, though of course adapted to each region with their anthem and colours)

If you have any questions about this timeline, feel free to ask in the comments and I'll be glad to answer - I plan to make more content related to this timeline in the near future too as I find it quite interesting.