Development councils, a rare tool of local democracy, threatened by a proposed law

Quietly but surely, the Senate dealt a serious setback in early June to one of the few institutional spaces where citizens can influence local decisions. As part of a proposed law on prefectural power, senators adopted a government amendment authorizing prefects to exempt inter-municipal authorities with more than 50,000 inhabitants from creating a development council (Codev). The amended bill passed its first reading and must now be examined by the National Assembly.

These councils, established by the Voynet Law in 1999, are consultative bodies composed of citizens, community, economic, and social stakeholders. Their mission: to dialogue with elected officials, debate, propose, and sometimes even take up issues that concern the territory. Whether it concerns housing, mobility, development, or ecological transition, they can intervene both upstream and downstream of decisions. There are currently 346 of them in France, 132 of which are grouped within the National Coordination of Development Councils (CNCD). Until now, their creation was a legal requirement for inter-municipal authorities with more than 50,000 inhabitants.

For the executive, this "uniform" obligation does not always reflect "the diversity of local situations" and can be "inappropriate when it precedes a territorial dynamic still under construction." The amendment, assures the government, aims to "restore flexibility and room for maneuver to elected officials," by allowing them to rely on other forms of consultation already in existence. "This exemption does not call into question the principle of citizen participation, but recognizes the need to adapt the forms of consultation to local realities and the maturity of inter-municipal cooperation," justifies the government, which adds that it wants to leave "the possibility [for the inter-municipal authority concerned] to create a development council at a later date, if it considers that the conditions are met to make it function usefully."

Except that, on the side of the defenders of participatory democracy, the signal is clear: we are going backwards. "The development councils are composed of citizens who volunteer, alongside elected officials, for the general interest, over the long term. Their existence cannot depend on a political context or prefectural arbitration," the co-presidents of the CNCD, Christine Azankpo and Bruno Arbouet, recalled in a press release published on June 16.

Maxence Guillaud, a member of the Codev of the European Metropolis of Lille and a member of the national animation collective of the Republican and Socialist Left, denounces "an amendment that formalizes a minimalist conception of citizen participation" and "offers reluctant elected officials an exit door to evacuate certain organized protests." Because while the Codev are not perfect—often meager budgets (€12,800 on average), sometimes unrepresentative composition, opinions rarely followed up—they are, when they work, true laboratories of local democracy: co-construction workshops, contradictory debates, alternative proposals.

Even before this vote, 58 inter-municipal authorities and 33 rural centers were not complying with the legal obligation to create a Codev. Already in 2019, the Engagement and Proximity Act raised the mandatory threshold from 20,000 to 50,000 inhabitants, excluding many small communities. This new relaxation risks further reducing their presence in the territory. For many observers of local life, this decision is part of a series of negative signals sent to organized civil society: at a time when distrust of elected officials is reaching a peak, weakening one of the few spaces where residents can engage directly with decision-makers amounts to widening the democratic divide even further.

The text must now be submitted to the deputies. Representatives of the Codev are calling for the outright deletion of Article 4b and for the legal obligation to be maintained in all the inter-municipal authorities concerned. They are also advocating for a strengthening of the system: guaranteed budgets, greater social diversity, and a random draw to broaden participation.

And Maxence Guillaud warns: "At a time of territorial divisions and political distrust, weakening the Development Councils amounts to depriving local democracy of a rare tool for recovery. These spaces can once again become places where we rebuild links between citizens and institutions, provided we give them the means to exist."

A few months before the 2026 municipal elections, the challenge is clear: preserve these places where citizen voice can influence public action, or let them slowly fade away, under the guise of administrative flexibility.