Model European Parliament at Conseil Régional d’Ile de France 

 
Hello everybody!

 


 Last Friday, April 1st 2022, we had an amazing experience. Indeed, thirty students of Lycée François 1er, ( 2ndes, 1res, and Tales) accompanied by Miss Léger, our English teacher, Mr Rubellin, History teacher, and Kirsty Ramdath, our Australian assistant, took part in a simulation of the European Parliament hosted by the Conseil Régional d’Île-de-France,  to work on a law about the reduction of plastic use in the European Union. Let us tell you about this exceptional event during which we acted as if we were Members of the European Parliament.


    After many adventures on the journey (a delay on the metro), we finally arrived at the Regional Council. There we met the other students who were going to be the members of the European Parliament, among them members of “our” political parties (from left to right: GUE/NGL, S&D, Greens/EFA, RE, EPP Group, ECR, and ID) including our “Party Coordinators”. 


    Next, we went to the Simone Veil hemicycle, a gorgeous and impressive room, where we sat according to the party we belonged to.(from left to right)  The organizer Hugo Pereira gave a speech about the purposes of our meeting; the coordinators then spoke about each party’s political line, and we also had a quiz on the European Union, which, let’s be honest, was quite challenging! 


    After that, we had lunch and then started political lobbying where we negotiated various amendments, trying to create alliances. It was time for debates and compromises. 


    Once we had submitted all our amendments, we started the voting process: we had to go through each amendment one by one and listen to people’s opinions about it, and finally vote for or against them, by show of hands, or electronically when  the numbers were unclear. 


Before voting, the amendment’s writers explained their ideas, and then each party could take the floor to express their opinions. But the speech time was restricted for each party. We debated for two and a half hours until we voted for all the amendments and the articles. At the end we voted for the entire text.
After that, each coordinator took the floor to express their opinions about the final text. Most of them were satisfied with it except for the Greens, who couldn’t agree because it did not meet their expectations..
Thanks to this simulation, we were able to have a cultural intellectual enrichment which is important for us, as we are Europeans citizens. It was also a very useful preparation for our next three-day experience at the “Parlement Européen des Lycéens “at Strasbourg, in May 2022. 


As a conclusion, it was an unforgettable experience where we got to meet other young people, discuss with them and share our political opinions about the future of Europe. We learnt how those institutions work, the role of their members and the impact of the decisions made on the European Union. We learnt how to structure our arguments, how to defend a cause, how to respond to criticism, and respect our opponents. We listened to each other. We also discovered the political world, and we realized how important it is to vote for the members of the European Union as they are the ones who will voice our opinions. They will make decisions which will drastically impact our daily lives, for example as far as environmental issues are concerned.
Thank you to the organizers of this fabulous event, our teachers, and Eurodoxa, the Association whose leaders organized the simulation. It was a red-letter day and, as a participant said:  “It was a wonderful day and it gave us the opportunity to grow as students in a world that is normally reserved to adults.”

Mylène Poitout, Charlotte Griveau-Mattéi, Emma Faure, Apolline Trouiller, Jerôme Furlanetto, 2nde 1