Climate Change and French way of participation

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to present and analyze under a legal perspective the French national procedures for public participation and deliberation in environmental matters, in particular in relation to climate change. Firstly, the article exposes the evolution of the French doctrine as regards the general framework of administrative participation: from pioneering approaches linked to institutionalist currents, to a controversial defense of the transfer of functions to the interested groups and, more recently, in the context of the rise of Anglo-Saxon theories of deliberative democracy, a very pragmatic emergence of integrated modalities of participation. From this theoretical basis, the article examines the two major national experiences in the field: the Grenelle Environment Process, exposing its development, strengths, weaknesses and final configuration as a model of negotiation; and the very different Citizens› Climate Convention, reporting on its formation, its results, the perplexities that derive from its practice and its consideration as a model of deliberation.