Look to Toulon an airport that barely gets 500,000 annually because AF feel they can force the local populous onto a few ATR rotations a day.
We're actually a bit better than that ( 320s and CR900s ) these days but you're more or less correct what you say - if you're going to anywhere other than Paris, nine months of the year you still have to connect through Paris, while the other three months there's still only AF who offer through fares from TLN.And no relationship with FlyBe out of TLN even though they show up a few times a week through those three months.
But I'll have to disgree with you and agree with inOban - most point-to-point travel from European Regional Airports is LCCs these days, and the European Legacies' networks in Europe are now primarily to feed their hubs. This past winter, it was possible to fly LHR > CDG > JNB with AF for less than half the price of BA's direct LHR > JNB. Conversely, BA's price for MRS > LHR > JNB was about 40% cheaper than AF via CDG.
Why ?? No idea.....