The participatory making of the programmatic offer. Campaigning metamorphoses and school depoliticization in the “Amiens c’est l’tien” list for the 2020 municipal elections

The 2020 municipal elections in France echoed the ideal of participatory shaping of political campaigns. This article examines how this campaign transformation impacted the production of the political offer in terms of the handling of schools in the left-wing list “Amiens c’est l’tien” (“Amiens is yours”) in the city of Amiens. The ethnographic approach shows that the democratization of manifesto production restricts the political imagination. It does so through a process of “consensualization” driven by external aims—shaping a non-conflictual image of the list—and internal aims—avoiding member conflicts that are diffused by participation. By shedding light on the relationships between representation practices, the division of political labor, and the depoliticization of social issues, this article shows that participatory mechanisms are a testing ground for ongoing political evolutions, and thus contribute to the understanding of contemporary transformations of local democracy.