A future assembly for Marseille
The French city of Marseille is investing in the future with a Citizens' Assembly. In view of the major challenges awaiting everyone in the city, randomly selected residents of the city think together about the city of tomorrow.
The citizens' assembly is
- a democratic instrument that makes it possible to work on medium and long-term projects and to promote their translation into visible action
- an instrument of inclusion, enabling those who are excluded from current democratic procedures to articulate themselves
- an instrument of redress to transform powerlessness into power to act
- an experimentation tool that contributes to building civic capacity
The randomly selected participants of the Future Council work on topics that deal with the city of tomorrow, its transformation and its resilience to climate change, for example. The use of sortition should guarantee a diversity of participating citizens. "This will be a key element in the richness and representativeness of the Citizens' Assembly's recommendations," explained Deputy Mayor Sébastien Barles at the start of the project.
111 assembly members
The Future Assembly consists of 111 citizens aged 16 and over, drawn annually from the city's population. They are to represent the diversity of the inhabitants and the characteristics of the city districts. The assembly
- consists of 60 per cent of residents randomly selected from the electoral roll
- 16 per cent are made up of young people between the ages of 16 and 18 who will be recruited through a call for applications in the city's secondary schools
- 24 per cent of residents who are not registered on the electoral roll (especially foreign nationals). To this end, there is support from organisations that have contact with the relevant population groups
The Citizens' Assembly works in four thematically delimited committees in addition to the plenary sessions. The Future Council can formulate wishes or opinions, propose a decision to the city council and evaluate political decisions and measures.
Recourse to other citizens' assembly models
The composition of the participants is based on various other Citizens' Assembly models. For example, the procedure of the Demokratiekonvent (Democracy Convention) in Frankfurt/Main, where one third of the participants are recruited through organisations and institutions that represent oder have contact with population groups that cannot be reached and mobilised in any other way. These are, for example, homeless people, people with a migration history, people with physical disabilities, people with diverse sexual orientations or people whose living conditions hardly allow them to participate in participation processes.
The fact that young people are more strongly represented in the Citizens' Assembly than their share of the population was already the case in the randomly selected citizens' panels that took place in the framework of the Conference on the Future of Europe between May 2021 and 2022. This was justified by the fact that questions about the future primarily concern young people.
First Citizens’ Assembly
The first Citizens’ Assembly operated from March 2023 to June 2024 with 111 residents selected by lottery. It deliberated on sustainable tourism, the economical and equitable use of water, nature in the city, as well as citizen participation and political education. The recommendations were submitted to the city on 11 June 2024.
Marseille subsequently set up a joint follow-up committee comprising former members and city officials, which reviews the progress of the recommendations several times a year. The city published an initial response in April 2025 and an updated implementation report on 30 June 2025.
Second round 2025
On 1 February 2025, a second Citizens’ Assembly, drawn entirely from a new pool of participants, was launched. Once again, 111 citizens were to be involved. The selection process was modified: instead of relying mainly on electoral registers, telephone directories and telephone number databases were used to better reflect social diversity. Residence district and gender were taken into account; at least 20 per cent were to be young people aged between 16 and 18.
The city set the topic of women’s health for the second mini-public. In addition, the members themselves chose cleanliness and behavioural changes in public spaces as a further topic. After eight working sessions, the actual deliberation phase ended in June 2025; the results were presented to the public on 30 June 2025.
Association founded
Meanwhile, the former members themselves are ensuring continuity. In July 2024, members of the first mini-public founded the association “Citoyen·ne·s du Futur” – Marseille. It works to implement the proposals, maintains contact between the different cohorts and sees itself as an independent civic oversight body. In autumn 2025, it also published a joint manifesto.