Federico Guerrini in Forbes: “French people, like the citizens of many other countries, have little confidence in their government or in their members of parliament.
A recent study by the Center for Political Research of the University of Science-Po(CEVIPOF) in Paris, shows that while residents still trust, in part, their local officials, only 37% of them on average feel the same for those belonging to theNational Assembly, the Senate or the executive.
Three years before, when asked in another poll about of what sprung to mind first when thinking of politics, their first answer was “disgust”.
With this sort of background, it is perhaps unsurprising that a number of activists have decided to try and find new ways to boost political participation, using crowdsourcing, smartphone applications and online platforms to look for candidates outside of the usual circles.
There are several civic tech initiatives in place in France right now. One of the most fascinating is called LaPrimaire.org.
It’s an online platform whose main aim is to organize an open primary election,select a suitable candidate, and allow him to run for President in the 2017elections.
Launched in April by Thibauld Favre and David Guez, an engineer and a lawyer by trade, both with no connection to the political establishment, it has attracted so far 164 self-proposed candidates and some 26,000 voters. Anyone can be elected, as long as they live in France, do not belong to any political party and have a clean criminal record.
A different class of possible candidates, also present on the website, is composed by the so-called “citoyens plébiscités”, VIPs, politician or celebrities that backers of LaPrimaire.org think should run for president. In both cases, in order to qualify for the next phase of the selection, these people have to secure the vote of at least 500 supporters by July 14….(More)”
