France is divided into 26 regions or régions (in french), of which 21 are in continental metropolitan France, one is the island of Corsica, and four lie overseas. Régions in mainland France are further subdivided in between 1 and 8 départements.

A regional council (French: conseil régional) is the elected assembly of a region of France.

Regional councils were created by law on 5 July 1972. Originally they were simply consultative bodies consisting of the region's parliamentary representatives plus members nominated by the departments and important municipalities. The decentralisation programme of 1982-1983 transferred some state functions to the regional council. The status of the region and its council was laid down in 1986.

Since 1986 the regional council has been directly elected, councillors being elected by département and serving a mandate of 6 years.

The council is chaired by the President of the regional council.

Régions do not have legislative autonomy, nor can they issue regulations. They levy their own distinct taxes (and receive a decreasing part of their budget from the national government which gives them a portion of the taxes it levies) and have sizeable, though not considerable, budgets, managed by a conseil régional (regional council) with nominated representantives from the departmental assemblies and major municipalities in the region.

Their main legal attribution is to build and pay equipment costs for lycées; in March 2004, the French national government announced a controversial plan to transfer to the régions some categories of non-teaching school personnel. Critics of this plan contend that it is doubtful that sufficient fiscal resources for these additional charges will be transferred, and that such measures will increase inequalities between régions.

Apart from these legal attributions, regions have considerable discretionary spending for infrastructure (education, public transportation systems, aid to universities and research, support for entrepreneurs). Because of this, being president of a wealthy region such as Île-de-France or Rhône-Alpes may be quite a high profile position.

There are, from time to time, discussions about giving limited legislative autonomy to the régions, but such proposals are controversial. There are also proposals to suppress the local government of the départements and transfer them into their respective régions, leaving the départements with very limited authority.