Democracy can no longer be confined to elections alone,” affirm the signatories of this column published in Le Monde, among which we find the climatologist and former vice-president of the IPCC Jean Jouzel, the professor of political science Loïc Blondiaux, or even the author and director Cyril Dion.
Since the dissolution, initiatives to request more citizen participation have multiplied. The collective “for a citizens’ convention on democracy”, at the origin of the platform, has been campaigning with this in mind since 2020, after the Yellow Vest crisis and the failure of the citizens’ convention on the climate.
A constitutional reform in three stages
With the dissolution and the early legislative elections, their demand is now gaining new momentum. “The dissolution of the National Assembly precipitated a lightning campaign, forcing an urgent choice of France’s political orientations for the years to come, without democratic co-construction. However, eight out of ten French people demand more participation in democratic life,” they lament in their column.
To set up this citizens’ convention, the collective first asks for the establishment of “foundations of democracy open to all”, throughout the territory. Once the proposals from these meetings have been gathered, the collective wants the organization of a convention composed of citizens drawn by lot, which would formulate “a proposal for reform of the Constitution”. This constitutional reform “would be intended to be approved in the same terms by the National Assembly and the Senate”, then would be submitted to a referendum.
The law on citizen participation, which entered into force in January 2021, effectively allows the creation of a citizens’ convention, which would be placed under the aegis of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (Cese). After the second round of the legislative elections, the president of Cese Thierry Beaudet also spoke out in favor of more citizen participation. “Our democracy is vulnerable. To preserve it, we must act rigorously and fully involve citizens and intermediary bodies,” he said in a press release.
This article is originally published on fr.news.yahoo.com
