“We are not in a democracy” : this little phrase is becoming a commonplace. Article 49.3, social dialogue confined to the anecdotal, accelerated parliamentary procedures… These are the forms taken by the government’s forced passage against the social movement, the workers’ unions and the elected officials of the National Assembly and the Senate. . They characterize the authoritarian turn taken by the Ve Republic. They confirm the observation of a crisis of institutions and the need to change the democratic regime.
While historic demonstrations are compared to a crowd of rebels, a new milestone has been reached: the renunciation of establishing a living democracy is progressing and winning, on the part of the resigned as well as those who govern us. Within our Frequence Commune cooperative and the Actions Communes network (a network that brings together municipalities and participatory collectives in France), we have observed this lack of democracy for several years.
Rid of this illusion that our republican institutions are also democratic, we are working to find methods, work habits between elected officials and residents, to bring to life the little democracy that our institutions allow. However, in the midst of pension reform, while the articles of our Constitution are used as ammunition against social dialogue and Parliament, we believe that it is time to go further and we have expressed this since our town halls.
For citizen goldsmith work
Citizens must regain power and give meaning to the status of elected officials. Beyond political and partisan divisions, in all villages and towns, it is now up to everyone to take responsibility. Because if Paris is on fire, focusing the attention of commentators, the strongest mobilizations – in the sense that they would be the most revealing – come from the communes of Poitiers, Vaour, La Montagne or La Crèche, and many others.
There, citizens are mobilizing, in the continuity of the unprecedented phenomenon of the participatory lists of the last municipal elections, where 700 collectives presented themselves in 2020, bringing together more than 12,000 candidates. And, without waiting for the big night, residents, non-professional politicians, have been doing, since they regained their town hall, this work of citizen goldsmithery which consists of restoring, street by street, house by house , the democratic ideal.
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