Ségolène Royal Argues For Randomly Selected Citizens to Advise on New French Constitution

by David Litvak

The socialist candidate in the French presidential election, Ségolène Royal, proposed to use randomly selected citizens, along with elected officials, as members of consultative Constitutional Commission.  The mandate of this body would be no less than advise the Presidency on a referendum question ushering in a new Sixth Republic of France.

This Committee would be comprised of constitutional scholars, congressmen, local and regional executives, as well as citizens drawn by lot from electoral registries. The Commission would have an advisory role and help draft a referendum proposal to put to the people of that nation to change the Constitution and declare The Sixth Republic. The present Constitution in France was initiated in 1958.

Proportional Representation Pushed by Two Candidates

One of the changes that Royal would approve of is to change the electoral system to include a significant “dose of proportional representation” in legislative elections. Another contender in the French election, centrist François Bayrou, has also mentioned he would try toalter the electoral system to include proportional representation. He, too, would like to initiate a Sixth Republic.

Ségolène Royal is trailing Nicolas Sarkozy in the polls, while François Bayrou is the third contender. Noticeably, however, polls give the presidency to Bayrou against both Royal and Sarkozy if he manages to reach the two candidate second round of voting. The first round of voting will be on April 22nd 2007. The second round is scheduled for May 6th.

Citizens’ Juries Still on Royal’s Agenda

Ségolène Royal , who is making a name for herself in European politics by suggesting a number of new “participatory democracy” proposals, continues to advocate her ideas on also using Citizen Juries.  In her view, the mandate of citizens’ would be to keep a check on government, without however having any formal sanctioning power..

Even though the proposal has been attacked from both sides of the electoral spectrum, Royal is sticking to her guns despite sinking some in public opinion polls on all the candidates. The reason for this is that Royal states that “authenticity commanded her to keep the proposal”, despite heavy resistance from her opponents, and even among some in her own party.