Groups Plan Paris Rally Calling for a Citizens’ Convention on AI
Opposition to the speed of AI development in France is moving from petitions to the pavement. A coalition of associations and public figures plans to gather on Thursday evening on the forecourt of the Accor Arena in Paris to demand a citizens’ convention on artificial intelligence, Le Monde reported, citing AFP. The site is deliberate: the arena hosts Big 2026, the large gathering of entrepreneurs organised by Bpifrance, where AI is high on the agenda.
The rally is organised by Réveillons-nous, a collective started by pianist Laura Operti. “Economic players are discussing the future of AI among themselves, but this burning issue concerns everyone and is causing widespread anxiety,” she said (translated from French). Its backers launched a petition in March on the platform of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE), calling for an urgent convention and arguing that the upheavals caused by AI are happening at lightning speed. So far it has gathered 3,900 signatures.
The coalition is unusually broad. It includes the Association des médecins urgentistes de France, the Algos Victima collective of families whose teenagers were harmed by social media, the translators’ collective En chair et en os, Pause IA, which campaigns for a global moratorium on AI, and Lève les Yeux, which works on the effects of digital technology on young people. Organisers say AI pioneer Patrick Albert, guitarist Mathias Duplessy and writers Gaspard Koenig, Blandine Rinkel and Abel Quentin, author of Sanctuaire, will attend. Operti hopes for more than a hundred people at what she calls the first rally of its kind on AI in France.
What it means in practice
A crowd of that size will not move policy on its own, but the demand lands in a crowded debate. In the National Assembly, LFI’s bill n° 3149 would require prior authorisation for general-purpose AI models, while the state funds Inria’s €13.5 million AI evaluation and safety programme. France has convened citizens’ conventions before, on climate and then on end of life, with members drawn by lot; one on AI would open a third track, with ordinary residents deliberating on the limits they want.
Worries in the cultural world have been sharpened by the Thélyson Orélien affair: the Canadian-Haitian author is accused of using AI to write C’était ça ou mourir, one of the successes of this autumn’s literary season. For the translators and writers in the coalition, whose work is directly exposed to generative tools, the timing is pointed.
What to watch: the turnout on Thursday, whether the petition gains momentum after the rally, and whether the government or the CESE responds.