We are glad to finally share the news with you: CitizenLab is launching in France! Two French cities have chosen CitizenLab to help them in their online citizen participation processes: Rueil-Malmaison and L’Isle-d’Abeau.
Their goal? Use the platform to launch efficient citizen consultation: engaging more citizens thanks to the reach of digital, optimize the collection and processing of citizen ideas, in order to lead and make decisions closer to the population’s expectations.
2018: French democracy goes digital
For the last few years, the digital ambition of France has been growing, and the role of citizens within democracy has not escaped this trend. The participatory budget and citizen consultation initiatives which are multiplying all over France are proof of this. From the town hall to bigger institutions, it’s time to realize what the stakes of digital are, as shows the public consultation launched at the French parliament end of 2017 by the French member of parliament Paula Forteza. In 2016, Axelle Lemaire, then Secretary of State in charge of digital and innovation, started this with the law for the digital Republic. In 2018, France is moving things up a gear and can count on CitizenLab to support those participatory democracy initiatives.
CitizenLab : the civic engagement platform from the North
Putting the citizen back at the heart of public decision making, a growing trend that CitizenLab knows well. Since 2015, 72 governments have trusted the Belgian startup, from the national government of South Africa, to the little Flemish municipality. And it works: to this day, more than 10,000 citizen ideas have been gathered on the platforms and 150,000 citizens took part in the discussions.
