Article: The Region of Ile de France, including Paris and its surrounding communities, is governed by the Regional Council, which has its headquarters in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. It is composed of 209 members representing the different communes within the region. On December 15, 2015, a list of candidates of the Union of the Right, a coalition of centrist and right-wing parties, led by Valerie Pecresse, narrowly won the regional election, defeating a coalition of Socialists and ecologists. The Socialists had governed the region for seventeen years. In 2016, the new regional council will have 121 members from the Union of the Right, 66 from the Union of the Left and 22 from the extreme right National Front.

Now answer this question: For how many years did the socialists governed the region?
seventeen