Early this month, the French Ministry of Ecology launched a new interesting initiative to encourage its citizens to be part of the governmental decision process. The theme is energy, and in particular the transition to new and sustainable energy sources in the country polices.

In order to ensure the widest participation, a website was created accessible to any web surfers. The website is divided in 4 section and the main area is devoted to the discussion on key issues both at national and local level, suggesting several questions to foster the debate, such as: "What is the energetic transition? Why is France going to invest in a new development strategy? What is the situation of energy production and consumption in France? How do we develop renewable energies?"

The other sections collect information and news, and organize the further steps of this sharing strategy: the framework of the plan, dates and schedules, results and so on. A citizens committee will superintend in order to guarantee to the all stakeholders a free access to the panel discussion, and to prevent the discussion to become too technical.

The debate will continue until next July, and the results will be incorporated in a new law on energy planning to be presented in November.

This system of data disclosure and public participation is surely a novelty and it is strongly expected by the French government to become a best practice and a reference example in the environmental field.