French President Emmanuel Macron gathers Ministers on Tuesday, December 18, to prepare a “national dialogue”. In the next three months, public consultations will be held in mayors across the country. Their main goal is to reduce the anger of “yellow vests” and get out of the political crisis. The independent Commission organizing the discussions has already expressed concern that the government will use these meetings for its political purposes.

Social measures were followed by political ones. At the initiative of Emmanuel Macron, public consultations will be held throughout the country over the next three months. They should start immediately after the New Year holidays. How it will be organized in practice is not yet clear to the end.

The government claims that “every Frenchman” will be able to participate in the consultations. The authorities, in turn, undertake to respond to each participant and to take a number of new measures. For example, to diversify the types of state aid to those who invest in green energy, and to expand opportunities for direct participation of citizens in political life.

The meetings will be held in the city hall. This idea is already causing controversy among French mayors. Philip Joslin, mayor of the small commune of Merikur in the Department of Ivelin, believes that these consultations should take place in the city hall, and the communes should come to the fore of political life and become the main “cells of democracy”. It does not agree with him Sylvie Down, the mayor of the village of Montigny-Les-Vocular in the East of France. She believes that such discussions should not take place at the level of mayors, because mayors simply do not have the authority on issues of purchasing power, taxation and other issues that will be put on the agenda.

The national consultations will cover four main topics: ecology, taxation, government agencies, and civil society participation in political life. Within the framework of the last topic, it is planned to discuss immigration issues, according to the government report of December 12.

As noted by AFP, it is possible that the “civil referendums”, which are required by the “yellow vests” and the opposition — from the far left “Rebellious France” to the right “Republicans”will be discussed. We are talking about proposing bills and putting them to a referendum if an initiative is gaining a certain number of signatures (“yellow vests” in the list of their requirements mentioned the threshold of 700 thousand signatures).