Before the draw organized on September 28, Josée Massi, mayor of Toulon, highlighted the scale of participation: "During the previous term, the same call for candidacies only gathered 280 people in two months." Between September 7 and 22, Toulon residents were invited to apply to sit on the sector councils, a mandatory participatory democracy body for municipalities with over 80,000 inhabitants. Among the applicants, 728 residents and 79 representatives of associations or businesses wished to get involved in their neighborhood's life.
Toulon's five new sectors – Northwest, Northeast, West, Center, and South – all saw strong mobilization. "We went from ten sectors to five: the neighborhoods were grouped by project coherence and also by the specific needs of the inhabitants," explained Corinne Jouve, deputy for Proximity Democracy. The South sector leads with 219 candidacies, followed by the Center (190) and Northeast (163). The West recorded 131 candidacies and the Northwest 104. While there are differences in distribution, no area was left out. The Center sector alone accounts for over 40% of candidacies from associations and businesses.
The draw took place in the André-Seguin hall, presided over by the mayor. A total of one hundred people were selected: ten residents (five titular and five substitute) and ten representatives of associations or businesses (five titular and five substitute) for each of the five sectors. These members will join the elected officials and representatives of the Local Interest Committees (CIL) to form each sector council, composed of four colleges of five representatives. Candidates will be individually informed of the results by email.
These new bodies will officially take office in January 2027. They will meet twice a year and will have a dedicated participatory budget to carry out local initiatives. The aim is to give these bodies an operational dimension, serving as places for exchange and consultation on neighborhood projects, rather than mere information sessions. "These are not facade bodies, but genuine places for exchange and consultation," insisted Josée Massi. This initiative is designed for the long term, aiming to ensure that proposals made within these bodies can lead to concrete achievements after feasibility studies.
