In the NUTS (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics) codes of France (FR), the three levels are: Up until 2016, the first level NUTS regions of France consisted of Ile de France, Bassin Parisien, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Est, Ouest, Sud-Ouest, Centre-Est, Méditerranée and the Départements d'outre-mer.
A law passed in 2014 by the French parliament reduced the number of metropolitan regions in the country from 22 to 13.
[2] As a result, the first level NUTS statistical regions were altered to reflect the changes.
[3] Although the Départements d'outre-mer, as integrated departments of France, have always been a part of the European Union and its predecessors, they were only officially included as a permanent NUTS statistical area of France in 1989.
When they did appear in previous statistics the first and second level NUTS areas were one and the same; from 1989, Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana and La Réunion were designated as separate level 2 regions.