Fréquence Commune – The Cooperative of Participatory Municipalities

Fréquence Commune is a Cooperative Society of Collective Interest (SCIC) founded in 2020 and based in Grenoble. It brings together a professional and activist collective—citizens, activists, researchers, and elected officials—committed to reinventing local democracy in France.
Since 2019–2020, it has supported residents, public employees, and local officials involved in participatory municipality projects, offering training programs, facilitating citizens’ assemblies, implementing sortition processes, conducting end-of-term evaluations, and helping mobilize municipal teams.
The cooperative model, designed to embody the collaborative values it promotes, is structured around eight categories of members. All profits are reinvested in its mission, with no shareholder payouts.

In addition to its fieldwork, Fréquence Commune runs a national network called Actions Communes, which connects municipalities and citizen-led lists elected since 2020. Its goal is to share experiences and foster more deliberative forms of democracy.
The organization publishes a wide range of resources: methodological guides, the handbook The Town Hall Is Yours, maps of local initiatives, podcasts, and public talks. It has also released a major report titled Taking Power to Share It, which analyzes the dynamics, challenges, and lessons of the local participatory movement from 2020 to 2026.