Emmanuel Macron wants to launch a third citizens’ convention in 2024 and says he is considering “several referendums”

This will be the third. Emmanuel Macron announced on Friday April 26 that a new citizens’ convention would be launched by the end of the year, after those on the climate and the end of life. “It is intended to be completed by the end of the five-year term”, he said during an exchange with members of the Citizens’ Convention on the end of life at the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE). The latter will help define the theme “in the coming months”.

The End of Life Convention brought together some 200 French people chosen at random for several months to work on a change in the law regarding end of life and then give recommendations. This reflection led to a project presented on April 10 to the Council of Ministers. The Head of State praised the work of the Convention, believing that “on a subject with such an ethical dimension”he constituted “one of the factors in calming society while moving it forward”.

The president does not rule out resorting to several referendums

Facing “disinterest in public affairs”, “I am convinced that deliberative and participatory democracy is a way to put the pieces back together”he declared, while recognizing that certain elements of the first convention had been “much less well organized”. For many observers, the executive had in fact neglected the conclusions of the Citizens’ Climate Convention.

Finally, the head of state has not ruled out resorting to referendums. “I am thinking about several referendums in which I could take the initiative”, he said. “I want to do it at the right time.”he added, recalling that in the end, the referendum was often “rarely the answer to the question asked and rather”Yes or no” to the person who puts it”.