They are 100 Parisians, randomly selected from the million people registered on the Parisian electoral rolls, with a system that makes it possible to obtain representativeness in terms of age, sex and level of diploma. And here they are ready and ready to pass their great oral and present the fruit of their work, which should, logically, be adopted at the Paris Council this Thursday afternoon.
“They” and “them” are the inhabitants who form the new Citizens’ Assembly, created in October 2021 by the City of Paris, in the wake of the democratic reflections launched by the Yellow Vests movement. They began to work in November 2021 and their mandate ends today, once the three deliberations they are proposing have been presented and adopted, which focus on three themes: access to reading, energy renovation and public space.
A label for energy renovation
It is this last text which should make it possible to create a “street code” in the summer of 2023 to “optimize and calm the public space”, and “act in order of priority on the conflicts of use linked to the traffic and modes of travel, parking, activities in the public domain and signage”, with measures “for development, verbalization, and general public awareness. »
The second text should be used to renew the Reading Plan signed between the rectorate and the City of Paris. It proposes setting up book exchanges and book exchange systems in the city, continuing activities outside the walls of municipal libraries, organizing intergenerational activities around reading, or even generalizing ” Rallyes Lectures”, experimented in the 18th arrondissement. To arrive at these recommendations, the members of the Citizens’ Assembly visited the Center Paris Lecture and interviewed associations, representatives of parents, experts and experts…
Finally, the Citizens’ Assembly lists a whole series of proposals to try to promote the energy renovation of Parisian housing, in particular by creating a “recognition label for condominium trustees who demonstrate their skills on the subject”, by increasing the number of sessions training for trustees and union councils, or by strengthening the network of renovation “Ambassadors”, co-owners trained and supported by the Parisian Climate Agency who help other residents get started. Finally, the Citizens’ Assembly wants a “right to follow” on its action and asks the Council of Paris to urge the State to massively renovate housing.
“Executive-led” work?
If on the side of the town hall, we boast of a “world first on the scale of a city of two million inhabitants”, on the side of the LR opposition, we are less excited. “We do not question the citizens drawn by lot, but it is a communication operation and it has nothing to do with democracy”, advances Catherine Dumas, councilor for Paris in the 17th arrondissement. The LR group denounces “an additional level to the incomprehensible “participatory millefeuille” in Paris” and judges that the work was “directed by the executive”, the content of the deliberations making “strangely consensus with the doxa of the Executive”.
“It’s a new democratic body that arouses interest in the world, we are very proud of this first promotion”, believes on the contrary Anouch Toranian, the deputy of the City of Paris for citizen participation. What to give ideas to other cities?