Yep, people in this thread are claiming that this doesn’t work.
In fact, it does work, and it is already implemented! Here in Germany we also have the concept of „Bürgerräte“, and we have similar problems as in France (no political power to implement their solutions).
However, one takeaway was that people vastly underestimated how carefully the participants would try to understand the topic at hand. People that would usually just regurgitate angry propaganda were forced to form their own opinion and they did!
IMHO it’s this is a great tool for democracy that is yet underused.
But how useful is it as a tool if nothing is implemented in the end ?
What's worst is that, at least in France, there was an elegant solution to the problem : just ask the general population to approve or reject the proposals in a referendum. Even if the referendum was consultative, and even if the lawmakers were to make the law in the end, it would have massively made it harder to ignore the result.
And I would have loved to see the "popular jury" campaign for or against the measures.
In fact, it does work, and it is already implemented! Here in Germany we also have the concept of „Bürgerräte“, and we have similar problems as in France (no political power to implement their solutions).
However, one takeaway was that people vastly underestimated how carefully the participants would try to understand the topic at hand. People that would usually just regurgitate angry propaganda were forced to form their own opinion and they did!
IMHO it’s this is a great tool for democracy that is yet underused.