Paris is taking an Olympian leap in democratic innovation; but is the rest of France?

Finn Shewell

Over the past few months, you may have heard about the mammoth effort that France has put in to hosting the 2024 Olympics; cleaning up the Seine, building new facilities, and focusing on an innovative approach to the games that spreads the events all throughout Paris. But the Olympics isn’t the only thing France is pushing the boundaries on - they’re also leading innovations in their democratic systems. 

The 2023-2024 Paris Citizens’ Assembly Members, Credit: City of Paris

Paris Citizens Assembly passes bill into law in spectacular relay

On July 10th, the Paris City Council passed a bill drafted collectively via citizens assembly, made up of 100 representative Parisians. This assembly worked in a relatively unique way; splitting into two working groups; one with a top-down mandate to draft legislation in their choice of one of three areas recommended by the Mayor and Council (either policing, homelessness, or advertising in public spaces), and one with the freedom to determine their own mandate from the bottom-up (although this group would only be devising policy recommendations). These two working groups ultimately selected Homelessness and Greening the city. 

The members working on the Homelessness bill had a massive task ahead of them; typically members of a Citizens Assembly are tasked with generating recommendations; writing legislation is an order of magnitude more complicated, and showcases the immense trust the council put in their citizens.

Ultimately, this trust paid off; 20 measures were included in the bill, and the bill was passed in early July, marking a historic moment for deliberative democracy in France.

Credit: The Guardian

Paris Mayor performs record-breaking lift of 25% budget towards citizen consultation

Anne Hidalgo, most recently known for swimming in the Seine ahead of the Olympics, made a massive move after her reelection in 2020; committing 25% of Paris’ investment budget to consultation with citizens in various ways. This includes the aforementioned Citizens Assembly, along with 5% of the total budget (20% of the consultation budget) reserved for Participatory Budgeting. Paris’ PB process, which has been running since Mayor Hidalgo was first elected in 2014, boasts impressive engagement stats - with 7% of the 11 million-strong population taking part in 2022 alone. In a move that resonates with their approach to hosting the 2024 Olympic games, this 25% commitment includes a ‘beautify your neighbourhood’ project; a series of consultations aiming to get local residents playing an active role in shaping their local environment.

Credit: Democracy Next

France reaches eye-watering consensus rate on End of Life

In 2022, 184 randomly selected citizens from across France reached a stunning 92% consensus around 67 recommendations pertaining to end of life matters. President Macron was quoted as saying the members had “perfected and brought to maturity” the democratic innovation of Citizens’ Assemblies.

For comparison, New Zealand passed our euthanasia referendum in 2020 with a 65% consensus rate.

This stark difference isn’t simply the result of legislative or cultural differences; both the volume of recommendations passed and the strength of consensus behind those recommendations is down to the approach. A referendum is participatory; it gives everyone a say. But a Citizens Assembly goes one step further; it requires deliberation. It empowers people to come together and share their views, and most importantly - hear the perspectives of others too.

Credit: peoplepowered.org

Climate Assembly proves it’s a marathon, not a sprint

Possibly the most well-known case of Democratic innovation in France, the Citizens Convention for Climate took place in 2019 and 2020, empowering 150 randomly selected citizens to have their say on the future of climate action in France. The assembly met across multiple sessions to deliberate and consider a massive range of options presented to them. At the end of their deliberation, they presented President Macron with 149 policy proposals, with 146 of these then being passed on to Parliament. While there was some frustration that Macron had broken a previous commitment to pass all recommendations along to Parliament unedited, this still served as a leap forward for climate assemblies on the global stage, and lay the foundation for many of the more recent deliberative approaches we see above.

An impressive statistic from this particular Citizens Assembly is that 13 of the 150 participants ran for office in the ensuing regional elections. That’s more than 8% of those involved going on to participate in representative democracy in the deepest possible way. This is an incredibly strong signal that deliberative democracy empowers people to act in their communities, and restores their faith in public institutions.

Credit: BBC news

Recent election proves sometimes it is a sprint, actually

While certainly not a democratic innovation, this list would just feel incomplete without acknowledging the recent election in France, and considering what it might mean for the future of both deliberative and representative democracy.

To summarise what took place - France just held their parliamentary elections. The election works in two phases, with a 50% majority required by regional candidates in order to be elected. If you reach that threshold in the first round, you’re in. If no one in your region gets more than 50%, it’s on to round 2 - with the top 2 candidates and anyone who secured more than 12.5% going head-to-head.

In that first round on 30th June, most of the candidates who won were representatives of far-right parties. The next round of voting would be held on 7th July, giving the parties that make up the left one week to radically change their approach if they wanted any hope of securing some sort of majority in Parliament.

Over the course of that week, 216 candidates dropped out of the election across the regions, working to consolidate the vote on the left in order to prevent more right-leaning candidates from securing a parliamentary majority.

It worked - with a massive swing left in the second round of voting, placing the left-wing NFP party at the top of the polls - although still without the required 289 seats needed to secure a majority.

Given all of the above, it’s clear that France is leading the way in empowering citizen voices. There are many ways Aotearoa could pick up these innovations and run with them; we have the potential to be a medallist in future democratic olympics. But for now - France is a strong favourite for gold.

Finn Shewell is an active supporter of WEAll Aoteaora, on the committee of Trust Democracy and working to advance participatory approaches mahi in Aotearoa.