Participatory democracy in Vendôme : an efficient tool... but what for ?

Counting up only 18,000 inhabitants, Vendôme wasn’t legally forced to set up neighbourhood councils. However, this city launched participatory democracy deliberately, setting such councils in october 2004. A little more than two years later, they have been acknowledged by more and more people, what doesn’t prevent citizens' participation from facing a certain number of questions and doubts, both from inside and outside the city hall.

Thus Vendome’s young participatory democracy seems to be quite particular, due to this contrast between the voluntary committment of the town council, and the persistent difficulties for such an approach to have its place. Its very goals are not given yet any clear and shared definition.

If some aspects of Vendôme participatory democracy may be similar to what happens in other french cities, this particular context is all the more intersting that it still has an influence on participatory democracy’s working, difficulties and future challenges.


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First, the idea of one

Located in the region « Centre », 200 km South-West from Paris, Vendôme is a small city of 18,000 inhabitants. Like the french sub-prefecture stereotype, Vendôme combines nice surroundings with absolute tranquillity, where life is disturbed more by old family rancors than by “real” problems : neither rural decline, nor urban sensitive neighbourhoods.

Even if the mayor (Daniel Chanet, socialist) was elected in 1989, participatory democracy in Vendôme rose only 3 years ago. In 2001, municipal election were won by “Gauche plurielle”, refering to the national alliance of left parties (socialist party, communist party, green party,...) governing France from 1997 to 2002.

Telling that participatory democracy was adopted with a tremendous burst of enthousiasm would be quite exagerated. More precisely, it was first the idea of the only econogist deputy mayor, Florent Grospart, under the influence of anti-globalism and of other participatory french experiences. In 2002, french law on “démocratie de proximité” (local democracy) forced cities over 80,000 inhabitants to set neighbourhood councils. Although Vendôme wasn’t concerned by this law, Florent Grospart seized the opportunity to suggest the town council to take up voluntarily such an approach. He difficultly managed to convince the council of the soundness of his idea, all the more than he was the majority party’s ally, but not one of its members.


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First actions described as "participative" and the birth of neighbourhood councils

Participatory democracy wasn’t built on nothing. Mayor was already used to meeting neighbourhood associations and inhabitants at least one time a year, and other actions already existed, which were linked to citizenship and citizen’s participation : creation of “Vendôme Associations” (a network of associations), organization of neighbourhood picnics and nomination of 5 members of the town council as neighbourhood elected representatives. In city administration, a person was nominated in charge of participatory democracy and community life (both subjects split in 2006).

In october 2004, 3 neighourhood councils were launched, and introduced as the main participatory tools in Vendôme. Participatory democracy was defined as the mean of “offering each citizen the opportunity to get involved in his area’s life, to take part to debates, thoughts and choices about his neighbourhood, his city.”

Neighbourhood councils were presented as follows : “Real speaking places, open to all, every inhabitant has his place here, whatever his cultural or social belonging can be. These places enable representatives and citizens to think together about a neighourhood’s life, its improvement and its future. They enable us to take in consideration the expert role an inhabitant can play in the development of his neighbourhood.They enable the citizen to get informed and trained about topics coming withinlocal life. Then, any citizen can give its opinion and make proposals... about subjects concerning his neighbourhood but also his city. This speaking and exchanging place gives then the inhabitants the opportunity to take back an area they frequent daily. Neighbourhood councils ease communication between elected representatives and citizens and further social cohesion.” (quotes from documents showed to participants to the first meeting).

The first block which had to be left was a certain reluctance from neighbourhood associations. Settled for a long time, they feared to lose their power, as before the neighourhood councils they were privileged interlocutor of city representatives. Now, some of these associations have fully taken over participatory democracy, whereas another one totally withdrew.


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From the "deputy's pet" to a real commitment

The main problem is that participatory democracy remains “the deputy mayor’s pet”, on the one hand because of its particular approval process and on the other hand due to french habit to equate “democratie participative” with “proximité”. Even if the idea of participation was accepted by the town council and the mayor, asking them to get totally involved in this project was out of question.

This process enabled the neighbourhood councils to be set quickly, as the deputy mayor and the civil servant in charge of participatory democracy could install them apart from usual administrative weight. Between representatives as well as beteween civil servants, a kind of deal seems to have been struck : “develop inhabitants’ participation as you want, but don’t let it encroach on the ordinary way of processing the issues.”

The point is that making citizens dealing with their neighbourhood’s life implies that representatives and administration take account of what they say. Leaving the councils under the only responsability of the deputy-mayor and the civil servant lead inhabitants work about various issues without technical light and without link to other matters processed through the “classical” way, and without knowing whether sums necessary to achieve councils’ projects would be planned or not in city budget. This led councils’ projects to suffer from certain flaws concerning their technical, economical or political realism, and their coherence with other projects.

Though outward statements, the fact that citywide issues could be processed through a deliberative way has never been brought up. To a lot of people in the city hall, participatory democracy by definition only concerns the neighbourhood, and they can’t sincerely imagine why and how it could be different. But inhabitants don’t really care of who supports or not participatory democracy in city council and administration : to them, the whole institution got committed itself to listen to them and to take account of their opinion. Clearly, perceptions of participatory democracy are not the same in inhabitants’ mind and in representatives’ mind.

This imbalance implies frustration, as city representatives see the neighbourhood councils more as places of debate, whereas participants consider expect them to be spaces of problem solving. How many times could it be heard : “you always organise stringy meetings, using vague words such as ‘citizenship’, ‘workgroups’, ‘councils’,... but you don’t tell us what you expect to do to prevent trucks from passing by our street !”.

It implies also distrust, for example when inhabitants were not consulted for a new sewage treatment plant project, which had strenghtened the critic from inhabitants and the opposition : “participatory democracy is only used by representatives as a curtain of smoke, letting us debate about flowers and dog turds, whereas important matters, such as the plant which will be built in front of our houses and bring nuisance, are totally hidden from us.”



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Replacing “why” before “how”.

Interviews with various actors of neighbourhood councils bring out that participatory democracy has been taken up as a very intersting tool, whose purpose remains to be defined however. Only a few persons consider this initiative hasn’t got any interest, while the others care about it for various and sometimes ill-defined reasons. In any case, it seems essential that people debate and share a better-defined vision about participatory democracy and its goals : efficiency, consistency and spreading sum up the challenges which are to be taken up now. Even in the city of Ronsard, being just literature may not assure an eternal life to citizen’s participation.