France’s citizens’ climate convention has come back to bite Macron

Those of us who are sceptical about the worth of citizens’ assemblies have been noting with interest the upshot of the French citizens’ convention for the climate which delivered its recommendations this week. The thing about these assemblies of randomly selected citizens mulling over thorny issues is that they’re a brilliant way for elected politicians to shift the responsibility for really unpopular policies onto someone else. Except they can go horribly wrong.

President Macron used this device to deal with the threat from the gilets jaune, back in those distant days when citizens could actually assemble in France. He had to deal with a movement that was driven by the concerns of predominantly rural voters who felt ignored by the elite while placating the urban young exercised about climate change. What better than to go through the motions of direct democracy to appease the first group while giving the random citizens a brief that would ensure that their conclusions appeased the environmentalists? The convention was asked how to ensure that French carbon emissions would be reduced by 40 per cent in 2030 from 1990 levels.

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The upshot was precisely as you’d expect: the convention has come up with proposals that no sane politician would actually want to take to the electorate, especially not in rural France.