This initiative is a democratic innovation and differs from other citizen participation projects in that it has succeeded in putting participatory democracy on the scale of the issues at stake. My France 2022 has succeeded in involving the population in a very broad way, giving a voice to all, including those who usually feel remote from this kind of mechanism. Further, the partnership with France Bleu and France 3, two major public service media outlets, made it possible to extend the citizen consultation: participants were not only invited to submit their proposals and vote in the consultation, but they could also develop their ideas and arguments on radio and television, sometimes during direct discussions with candidates and politicians. In this way, the initiative gave citizens a real voice and influence in the election campaign.

The collaboration with France Bleu and the partnership with France 3 were essential to the approach. They made it possible to reach the French people in all territories and in their daily lives, through radio, television and the Internet. They also gave an echo to the citizens' priorities, vis-à-vis the presidential candidates who had to take a position on these priorities, but also vis-à-vis all the voters, so that they could vote with a better knowledge of the facts.

Citizens were both the users (participants in the consultation) and the main beneficiaries of this democratic innovation. The consultation allowed them to make proposals and vote on those of other citizens in order to bring out the priorities of the French. It also enabled them to find out what the presidential candidates' positions on their priorities were, and thus helped or reinforced their vote.

In 7 months, the My France 2022 consultation has gathered 1 million participants, 34,000 proposals and 7 million votes. One month before the first round of the election, the results of the consultation and the Citizen's Agenda made it possible to place 12 priorities at the heart of the public debate. This massive contribution to the consultation demonstrated the French people's thirst for participation in the public debate. What is striking is that the proposals concerning the exercise of democracy, the status of elected representatives and their presumed "advantages" were very largely at the top of the list of subjects mentioned by the French, ahead of purchasing power, ecology, education, health, etc., and very far ahead of security and immigration. The main indicators used to evaluate these results are the participation figures. Beyond this massive citizen participation, Make.org also made sure to have a certain representative balance of participants, in terms of age, gender, and region.

One of the difficulties encountered during the consultation was to fulfil the first requirement that Make.org set itself: that of legitimacy, by ensuring a broad participation and a representative balance of the participating population. Although the consultation succeeded in involving the French people to a large extent, it was still necessary to ensure that there was a representative balance of the population. Demographic steering was necessary to ensure that the profiles of the participants were in line with those of the French. The rebalancing was done in particular through acquisition campaigns on social networks. The large volume of proposals to be analysed also led the teams of sociologists and data scientists at Make.org to strengthen their analysis methodology and their algorithms to distinguish between consensual and controversial proposals, as well as to group emerging proposals by subject similarity.

The first conditions necessary for the success of this democratic innovation concern the citizens directly. Indeed, in order to be so massive, such a citizen consultation must be, from the outset, as clear as possible to the citizens regarding the impacts of the process, but also regarding the role of the citizens. The confidence of citizens in the process is consubstantial to its success. In the same vein, this consultation also had to be transparent, ethical and neutral: it was necessary for each presidential candidate to be invited to react to the citizens' views and to give them the same opportunity to do so. Finally, to ensure the legitimacy of the results, four major conditions were necessary: massiveness, control of representativeness, anti-trolling, and an analysis carried out by experienced sociologists

This mass consultation of citizens prior to elections can be repeated and carried out at different levels (local, national, European), and be the starting point for an ongoing dialogue with citizens. An initiative such as My France 2022 can be transferred to other organisations and countries. Indeed, such a consultation prior to elections or major democratic moments can be repeated in all democratic countries. Previous examples, carried out by Make.org at the European level (WeEuropeans) and at the local level (municipal elections in 2020), show the potential for replicating this democratic innovation, and underline the possibility of replicating such operations, which can have a major impact in the fight against democratic decline.

The first lesson learned is the thirst of citizens for democratic debate and their desire to make their voices heard. The abstention observed in France does not mean a loss of interest in public affairs: when the right question is asked, it is possible to engage citizens. Today, in a context where it is difficult to bring together all the players, it is more necessary than ever to reconcile citizens by bringing them together around a set of widely shared priorities. Faced with the fragmentation of our societies, these consultations are therefore more necessary than ever to highlight what brings us together. But for this to happen, citizen participation must be more demanding in order to revitalise democracy, at least on three points: ensuring broad participation and a representative balance of the participating population, transparent, neutral and independent implementation, and ensuring impact.