How the digital consultation platform Jenparle facilitated participation in the Citizens' Climate Convention: a participant's testimony

The provision of Jenparle during the Citizens' Climate Convention (CCC) was essential! The members were able to inform themselves, express themselves, exchange, question the governance and give their opinion on the digital platform of dialogue and collective intelligence: Jenparle.

A reminder: the Citizens' Climate Convention took place from October 2019 to June 2020. Its aim was to involve citizens in the drafting of the law, by asking them to define measures to accelerate the fight against climate change. The 150 French citizens chosen at random, representative of the diversity of French citizens, drew up a series of proposals aimed at achieving at least a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 (compared to 1990) in a spirit of social justice. A total of 149 proposals emerged from the Convention.

Agnès Catoire is one of the 150 drawn. A single mother, she describes herself as "representative of a certain category of the population", which was the objective of the draw. A user of JenparleShe talks about the uses of the platform during the Convention: what it could bring to the 150 in addition to the face-to-face exchanges.

Widespread use of Jenparle: get information, discuss, vote.

A.C.: On Jenparle, we shared all our ideas for measures, before they were finalized. It was like a collective notepad, where we sent all the ideas we had, and where everyone could read the proposals and give their opinion, with a thumb up for "I validate" and a thumb down for "I don't validate".

Every weekend, we exchanged a lot, but we could not absorb everything and sometimes some were absent. All the information was published on JenparleWe had a lot of information on the website, as well as the minutes of the Governance Committee, photos, etc. There were also a few citizens who took the lead to make sure that everyone was aware of the progress.

The platform was also used to communicate with the organizers and members of the Governance Committee. We could ask them questions, make proposals, personal requests, etc. Between us, we also had a WhatsApp group, but Jenparle was really essential to organize information and to have ideas validated by other users.

We also always voted on the Jenparle platform, even when we were in person. We took out our phones to vote, and it made it easier for people at a distance.

Participatory mapping: a way to centralise information

An accessible and easy-to-use platform

According to Agnès, it is an " easy to use and instinctive " platform, which did not require any specific training.

A.G.: At the beginning I didn't use it much, because I didn't necessarily have the reflex, but it quickly became essential to follow the progress of the groups' work, then to validate proposals and vote on amendments. Especially during the confinement. We did a lot of video-conferences by Zoom and the links were available on Jenparle: we had the summary of the information, and we could vote despite the distance.

Keeping the link, and validating decisions

A.C.: At 150, it can be hard to stay connected, especially during a period of confinement. Jenparle has allowed us to continue to communicate, both with each other and with the organizers and members of the Governance Committee."

It also allowed us to see the general trends on certain topics, and thus to prepare the face-to-face debates beforehand. Indeed, even if digital technology brings a lot, it is still essential to discuss face to face.

A tip on how to use the tool properly...

A.C.: If I can give one piece of advice to future users, it's to always remember to leave a comment when you put a thumb down on a contribution. It's good to show your disagreement, but you have to explain why. You also have to force yourself to use it, because it's not always a reflex at first. You get used to it quickly and it allows you to keep track of everything. I think it's a essential tool to keep in touchI think it's an important tool, especially when there's distance between the participants.

Mapping is a tool that allows you to geolocate contributions and information. The members of the Citizens' Climate Convention have made it their own!

A.C.: The idea of mapping in our case was to communicate with other members about the events we were organizing to exchange with the rest of the French population on the work of the Convention. It allowed us to see where we had done communication actions in France and in Overseas. We could see on the map where there were animations, and where information could still be missing.

For example, I participated in all the Climapéros in the Paris region by registering via the platform. These were events where we spoke about what we were doing, and to inform and exchange with the rest of the population about the process.