QUICK & PULSE

Employees and guardians of the National Public Debate Commission are on strike. In the name of democracy, they protest against the government's desire to withdraw industrial projects from their scope of action.

A first in the history of the institution. On Tuesday, March 25, the ten employees and the 300 guardians of the National Public Debate Commission (CNDP) are called to strike against a government reform proposal that would withdraw industrial projects from its scope of action.

The decree that was supposed to implement it was overturned by the Council of State, revealed the media Contexte on Friday, March 21. But the executive is not intending to stop there and should try again through an amendment to the draft law known as the economic life simplification bill, whose examination began in the special committee on Monday, March 24.

There will not be such a strong environmental regression without a fight

If adopted, projects for mines, factories, and other oil exploration projects could be launched without consulting or even informing the public about them. "Through this strike, we want to alert the public to this truly problematic reform project and make a point: no, there will not be such a strong environmental regression without protest and fight," explains Florent Guignard, an employee at CNDP, to Reporterre.

This committee was created in 1995 by the Barnier Act to organize public debates on major national public works projects with a high socio-economic or environmental stake. It became an independent administrative authority in 2002. EPR2 of Gravelines, offshore wind, multiannual energy programming… All the latest major programmatic texts and large-scale projects have passed through its offices.

Currently, industrialists are required to submit to the CNDP for any project with a value exceeding 600 million euros, and are free to do so if it exceeds 300 million euros. "The CNDP then decides to organize either a preliminary consultation or a public debate," explains Florent Guignard. "These procedures ensure that the citizens concerned are informed of the project and that those who wish to can give their opinion." Two rights enshrined since 2005 in Article 7 of the Environmental Charter, a text of constitutional value.

An attack on citizen participation

The reform would be a hard blow to citizen participation. "Instead of a public debate, the government proposes a preliminary consultation. However, it is optional, and project proponents who know that they are not in the public interest and have significant ecological impacts will not participate. It's a beautiful hypocrisy," criticizes Danielle Simonnet, MP (Ecologist and Social Group) from Paris and member of the CNDP.

The preliminary consultation would also become shorter: fifteen to three months, compared to four to six months for a public debate. "A kick-off meeting, an exit meeting, and that's it, we have the CNDP label at the end of the document showing that the minimum union in terms of participatory democracy has been achieved," jokes François Gillard, who represented the CGT at the CNDP from 2014 to 2024.

This restriction would also weaken the authority of independent administration. "Industrial projects represent half of the CNDP's activity. It's their most understandable and emblematic activity," says Florent Guignard. Moreover, it costs taxpayers nothing since public debates are funded by the project proponents: about 1 million euros for a project worth 1.5 or 2 billion euros.

"If this activity stopped, the CNDP would only function with public money. That would be an additional argument for its opponents, who will say it costs too much," the employee worries.

Consecutive offensives

For years, the CNDP has been under attack. As early as 2014, the Energy Transition Law provided for the end of public debates for high-voltage line projects, to the great satisfaction of RTE. In 2021, a decree of the Acceleration and Simplification of Public Action Law (Asap) raised the threshold for mandatory referral to the CNDP for industrial projects from 300 to 600 million euros. Not to mention the repeated attempts to completely abolish the Commission: in 2023 by Les Républicains (LR) deputies and in 2024 by National Rally (RN) deputies.

The former Minister of Economy Bruno Le Maire himself had proposed to eliminate it, before backtracking in the face of opposition from the Ministry of Ecological Transition. As for the restriction of its scope of action, it is a project long championed by the Macronists: former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced it in his speech on general policy, his successor Michel Barnier put the decree up for consultation on the very day of his government's censorship — while he himself founded the CNDP. And now Prime Minister François Bayrou, who was about to sign it before its rejection by the State Council, is now considering going through the amendment route.

A dubious saving of time

Advanced reason for justifying this perseverance: the public debate would unacceptably prolong the implementation of projects and harm the country's reindustrialization. "By bypassing it, 'that's six months gained in procedures,'" boasted Gabriel Attal. A fallacious argument that betrays a great ignorance of the functioning of the CNDP, reply all the people interviewed by Reporterre.

"The debate does not prevent the project from advancing at all. It is very early in its implementation, and technical studies can continue in parallel," sweeps away Ginette Vastel, representative of France Nature Environnement (FNE) and member of the CNDP. "There is this myth of the entrepreneur discouraged by the bureaucratic burdens of France. But the application is only mandatory for projects over 600 million euros. And I do not think it is because of the public debate that projects like EPR are delayed," comments the exasperated Florent Guignard.

"Some industrialists are reluctant"

It may be rather because the CNDP obliges industrialists to demonstrate transparency that the situation is causing harm. "There are industrialists who are reluctant because they know their project will be subject to criticism. We force them to talk about things they don't want to address, we involve independent experts, and we give everyone a voice, including opponents. It's not simple," Florent Guignard explains.

The master's file, a considerable amount of information validated by the CNDP and made available to the public, is a document with very high stakes. "Often, the submission, confidential, resembles a promotional brochure. They are told that much more needs to be included: environmental and socio-economic data, fiscal and social impacts, etc., including threatening to appeal to the Administrative Documents Access Commission," says François Gillard.

This document thus contributes to the construction of a civic and associative expertise on projects, and is suspected of providing material for future disputes. Yet, the members and employees of the CNDP observe the opposite. "Its powers were expanded to industrial projects in 2016, following the death of Rémi Fraisse at the site of the Sivens dam project, to de-minimize conflicts," recalls Florent Guignard.

A decree overwhelmingly rejected

Even though the goal of a debate "is not to improve the acceptability of projects," emphasizes the employee, many industrialists realize that it is an opportunity to better know a territory and its inhabitants and to improve the project to avoid oppositions. It was thus after such debates that the wind farm originally planned off the coast of Oléron was moved several kilometers, the CNDP recalls in a statement from last May.

The consultation on the draft decree organized at the end of last year also highlighted the respondents' attachment to the CNDP: "Of more than 4,000 opinions, only 11 were favorable to the decree," reports Florent Guignard.

"We do not want the people to interfere in ecological issues"

This project to restrict the scope of the National Council for Debate and Public Life is part of a broader context where participatory democracy is mistreated. The five-year terms of Emmanuel Macron were marked by the organization of the great national debate — which Chantal Jouanno, then president of the National Council for Debate and Public Life, had also refused to lead — and citizen conventions on climate and end-of-life issues.

More recently, François Bayrou announced decentralized citizen conventions on the question "What does it mean to be French?" But the grievances were treated with disdain, and the conclusions of the conventions were little implemented on climate issues, and outright rejected for end-of-life matters.

"It's very problematic. This shows that the citizens' voice does not deserve to be followed, not even in broad strokes. And this disdain and indifference of the power to what citizens want strongly feeds the distrust it faces today," warns Loïc Blondiaux, a political scientist specializing in issues of democracy and citizen participation and a member of the CNDP. "This participatory-washing undermines sincere approaches, like that of the CNDP, by reinforcing the impression that no matter what you say, nothing will change," agrees Florent Guignard.

Certainly, it is also recognized that the CNDP is not a perfect tool. Its opinions are not binding. Its history is marked by turbulent debates and very sharp criticisms, especially in matters of nuclear projects. "But it is not because it is insufficient that it must be weakened," insists Danielle Simonnet. "This serious reform goes against history: we do not want the people to interfere in ecological issues, we do not want to allow a democracy that exercises itself on industrial projects. This is truly a regression to the Trump era."