Raw Data from the Observation of the Regional Citizens’ Conferences of the Great National Debate

Report: Eighteen Regional Citizens' Conferences (CCR) (13 in mainland France and five in the overseas departments and regions) and a national Citizens' Conference dedicated to Youth were held in the second phase of the Great National Debate (GDN) (either on Friday and Saturday 15-16 March 2019 or on Friday and Saturday 22-23 March 2019). 1,404 people took part (1,216 in the 13 CCRs in mainland France, 68 in the National Youth Conference, selected by a national lottery based on telephone numbers, and 120 in the five CCRs in the overseas departments and regions, recruited specifically for each of these territories). For metropolitan France, this is the largest random draw ever carried out to constitute a mini-public. This report first describes in detail the recruitment process, generally referred to as the random draw, to discuss the representativeness of the CCRs. It then describes the protocol for observing their progress, set up by the Observatoire des débats (Debates Observatory; https://observdebats.hypotheses.org/), as well as the process of distributing the questionnaires during the CCRs, (both on entry and exit) by the organising mission and (on exit) by the researchers brought together by the Observatoire des débats. The report then compares the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants in the CCRs with those of the general French population, which allows us to show that the CCRs are not representative of the general population. Finally, the report reframes the responses given to the questionnaires and the associated descriptive statistics (i.e. the number of respondents to each question and the distribution, mean and standard deviation of the responses).

Author(s)

Bénédicte Apouey, Jean-Michel Fourniau

Date of publication
  • 2025
Keywords
  • Random Selection
  • Representativeness
  • Survey
  • Descriptive statistics
  • Sociodemographic characteristics
  • Citizens’ assembly
  • Mini-public
  • France
  • Preferences
Issuing body(s)
  • Gis Démocratie et Participation
Version
  • 1