OPINION by Luca Belgiorno-Nettis
October 27, 2026
Can everyday people make the hard calls on national public debt that politicians won't?
France is about to find out.
In this opinion piece for the Australian Financial Review, our founder Luca Belgiorno-Nettis writes about France's new national citizens' assembly on public debt: 150 randomly selected citizens asked how the country should regain control of its public finances and prepare for the future.
With French public debt at 119% of GDP, a presidential election next year and protests on the streets of Paris, adversarial politics is struggling to deliver bad news. Giving citizens time, evidence and a real task is a different way through.
As Luca puts it, while the footage from Paris shows shattered shopfronts, there's real change happening in the back rooms of the same city.
