Hello everyone.
Today I am going to talk to you about democracy and the draw.
I would like to convince you,
let’s draw our political representatives
is good for democracy.
When we think democracy, we think election.
This equivalence is so entrenched in our minds
that we have trouble questioning it.
So indeed,
examples of countries where there is no free election like ours,
let us think that without election,
point of democracy.
Still, one problem remains troubling:
it is that of the representativeness of the National Assembly.
The French labor force is made up of 22% of workers
and 17% of executives.
The National Assembly, it consists of 0.2% of workers
against 81% of executives!
So, sometimes people answer me
that it is because we chose the most competent people.
The National Assembly is composed of 26% women,
Will I also be told that men are more competent than women?
No, I do not think so.
Many movements make this finding of disconnection
between political elites and the social reality of citizens.
An argument often comes up.
Researcher David Van Reybrouck calls it the populist argument.
This argument states that it would be enough to change political staff
to reconnect the elites to the people.
David Van Reybrouck illustrates this argument
with the metaphor of blood transfusion:
the blood, the political staff, is bad,
it must therefore be replaced but without changing the organism.
If this thesis of “they all go away”
is right in his diagnosis
because the representativity of our assemblies is bad,
a simple change of blood would not change much.
The problem is not that we were wrong
to put in the ballot box,
but that the selection of eligible candidates made by the parties
leads to a professionalisation of the political profession
and closing these trades to entire sections of the population.
If our Assembly was composed not of elected officials,
but citizens drawn by lot,
the problem of representativeness would disappear.
We would not be the first to do that.
Greeks are often cited as pioneers of democracy,
Well, they did not vote that much.
Indeed, to turn power among citizens,
the Greeks made extensive use of the draw.
Boulè, the organ responsible for making the laws,
was composed of 500 citizens randomly chosen among the volunteers
and renewed annually.
It was the same for the court: Helie.
Note that we have kept this tradition
to have sitting jurors drawn by lot,
who have a central role in the decision.
But how did we get to our current system?
Why are there representatives that need to be elected?
We asked ourselves the question of the right political system
at the time of the French Revolution.
Without giving it more importance than it has in construction
of our political system,
Let’s look at the ideas of the Abbé Sieyès.
Abbé Sieyès was a member of the Third Estate at the Estates General,
he says in a speech on September 7, 1789
before the Constituent Assembly, which I quote:
“The competition – that is participation –
citizens to the law can be exercised in two ways.
Citizens can trust a few of them.
– it’s the representation.
The other way to exercise your right to the formation of the law
is to compete immediately to do it.
This immediate contest is what characterizes true democracy.
The mediate contest means representative government.
The difference between these two systems is huge. “
Until then, nothing surprising.
But he concludes the debate as follows:
“France is not and can not be a democracy.
The people, in a country that is not a democracy, can not speak,
can only act by its representatives. “
And the election would be there to choose its representatives.
Then the elect have their hands free,
it is according to Sieyès indispensable to enable them
to have a debate and to change their opinion.
So, I’m quite a supporter of a representative system,
although it is undemocratic in essence according to Sieyes.
I consider that the political decision is a long process,
that takes time,
and that it seems necessary to be able to delegate.
But if it takes representatives,
they must not be transformed into a closed caste.
I would like to convince you that by designating by election,
we introduce very many biases
and that if we use the only tool that is the election
to choose our representatives,
then we are misrepresented.
The logic of the election,
the closing and professionalisation of the political world push the elected
to seek re-election.
Of course, it’s their job!
But that does not help to have elected officials serving the general interest.
An even bigger problem is that
this capture of power by political elites is justified
a posteriori by an inability of the people to govern themselves.
Sieyes, always the same, said indeed, I quote:
“The great plurality of our fellow citizens
has neither enough education,
nor enough leisure to want to take care of the laws
who must govern France;
their opinion is therefore to appoint representatives. “
But … I’ve heard that argument before …
We systematically seek to eliminate
certain categories of political power,
because of their skin color,
their sex, their level of education, etc.
These are not even conscious processes,
we do not say every day:
“I’m not going to vote for her, she’s a woman.” No.
But still, little by little,
life trajectories make women seem less legitimate,
are less available to engage
too busy looking after the house,
their supposed space of predilection.
The election is not bad in itself,
it’s a very good way to give your opinion,
the problem is that when we choose someone,
we want to take the best.
Aristotle said that the election is aristocratic
because it pushes to choose the best.
And the best, who is it?
It’s the one that seems most legitimate to us,
the one who has been designated by his side as the most legitimate.
And all these little processes of selection, orientation,
are greatly influenced by the representations we have
what is someone legitimate to deal with politics.
This is how we find ourselves
with 26% women in the assembly and 0.2% workers.
It’s not because they are less competent,
it is because they are less legitimate in the eyes of society.
And yet, nothing indicates that our elected officials are competent.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
Let me take a concrete example
in which the elect can not be competent.
We often have the debate in France
the introduction of a proportional share in the National Assembly.
The two big government parties do not want it,
For fear of losing elected officials and small parties, they want it.
Seriously?
We should entrust the reform of our electoral system
to people who have been elected by this same system?
In any country,
it would be called an obvious conflict of interest.
That, British Columbia in Canada understands it.
In 2004, it sought to reform its voting system.
It was a majority vote, very similar to ours,
which made a party,
with a narrow majority in the vote,
could win the Parliament in its entirety.
15,800 people were randomly selected on the electoral lists
excluding those already elected.
This selection was parity and representative of five age groups.
There were 1,000 volunteers to attend information meetings
after which two citizens were drawn,
a man and a woman, in each constituency.
The Assembly thus formed was parity
and composed of 160 citizens, from civil society.
These citizens were trained for three months by experts
during the weekends,
they received an allowance of $ 150 / day
and their expenses were reimbursed.
Two months of public hearings ensued
during which the members of the assembly received
all citizens, nearly 3,000,
who wanted to speak on the subject.
Then there were two months of deliberations
after which the assembly made a concrete proposal
reform of its electoral voting system.
This proposal aimed to put in place
a more complex election, aimed at a better pluralism.
Unfortunately, these proposals were rejected by a referendum,
but that’s what I could call a real democratic process.
Citizens have been able, on a limited subject,
to form and produce proposals without going through the election.
Could we do that all the time, everywhere?
There are several fields of application in the draw.
The draw should not be seen as a substitute
of all our current elections without changing institutions.
No, it requires a profound change
and a redefinition of everyone’s political tasks.
I think citizen assemblies have all their legitimacy
to act on restricted, delimited subjects,
on which it is possible to form.
I also think they have a role to play
by creating control assemblies of our elected officials,
to validate their decisions and place themselves in a democratic guard.
There are not only advantages to the draw.
We will not replace our 600,000 elected officials,
including a huge majority of local elected officials,
by citizens randomly chosen all at once.
Many questions remain unresolved concerning
whether or not a mandate is mandatory if one is drawn.
Lottery should not be confused with direct democracy
where all citizens take part in the decision-making process.
It also seems utopian to think that it will totally eliminate
corruption or the formation of a ruling elite.
But of all the problems that I have just mentioned,
he has one that seems insoluble.
It is that whoever speaks to you today to change political system
is a man, male, white,
from social categories favored and studying in a large school.
It would have been very unlikely to see here in my place a woman,
of different skin color and coming from the university.
It is symptomatic of the origin of the legitimacy of people
talking about politics in the public square.
Only a very small part of the population seems to feel legitimate
and seems legitimate to talk about politics.
So do not count on me to bring you a turnkey system
where everything will work.
Until we understand that all people,
even socially dominated,
can and must speak in our institutions,
we will not be in a democracy.
What I want is the question of our political institutions
and decision-making processes are at the heart of our debates
and I think the draw is a great tool
to produce decisions, which are consensus
and create control assemblies of our elected officials.
Thank you.
(Applause)
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