Debate topics by theme
213 questions open for debate on Pointpol, grouped by theme. Pick one, take a side, and back your point with arguments and sources.
Agriculture
Business
- Should companies be prohibited from distributing a dividend amount greater than their profits?
- Should administrative rules and procedures for businesses be drastically simplified?
- Should public subsidies to companies be conditional on social and environmental commitments?
- Should stock-market-driven layoffs at profitable companies be banned?
- Should mandatory electronic invoicing for businesses be urgently suspended as of September 1st?
Culture
Democracy
- Should the legal voting age be lowered to 16?
- Should citizen-initiated referendums (RIC) be introduced?
- Should we defend freedom of expression?
- Should the requirement to collect 500 signatures to run for the presidential election be abolished?
- Should local authorities be given the regulatory power to apply national law themselves?
- Should a Constituent Assembly be convened to establish a 6th Republic?
- Should a citizens' initiative referendum (RIC) be introduced, allowing citizens to propose and repeal laws?
- Should a degree of proportional representation be introduced in parliamentary elections?
- Should the number of MPs be reduced and a new presidential Sixth Republic established?
- Should a single, non-renewable seven-year presidential term be introduced?
- Should the Constitution be revised to give national law primacy on migration matters?
- Should foreign residents be given the right to vote in local elections?
Domestic Policy
- Should 450,000 civil servants be redeployed from desk work to front-line duties?
- Should public services be strengthened through mass hiring in hospitals, schools and administrations?
- Should France disobey EU treaties conflicting with the programme (budget rules, free competition)?
- Should local authorities be given greater financial and decision-making autonomy?
- Should public services be restored in rural areas as a national priority?
- Should public transport be made free for young people?
- Should France build 150,000 new social housing units per year?
- Should rent control be extended to the whole country?
- Should non-contributory social welfare benefits for foreigners be ended?
- Should we decentralize?
Economy
- Should we implement a universal basic income?
- Will AI create more jobs than it destroys?
- Should inheritance above 12 million be taxed at 100%?
- Should France cut public spending to below 50% of GDP within ten years?
- Should the legal retirement age in France be raised to 65?
- Should France add a mandatory funded pension pillar on top of its pay-as-you-go system?
- Should France create a single employment contract merging permanent and fixed-term contracts?
- Should the net minimum wage be raised to €1,600 per month?
- Should prices of essential goods (food, energy) be frozen?
- Should privatised motorways be renationalised?
- Should unemployment insurance rules be adjusted according to economic conditions?
- Should tariffs be imposed at EU borders to protect French industry?
- Should industrial free zones be created to promote green reindustrialization?
- Should the number of civil servants be reduced to cut public spending?
- Should the RSA welfare benefit be conditioned on 15 hours of weekly activity?
- Should employer charges be scrapped on wages up to twice the minimum wage?
- Should France leave the euro and restore a national currency?
- Should the legal working week be reduced to 32 hours?
- Should France reduce its debt?
Education
- Should public university tuition be free for all citizens?
- Should smartphones be banned in primary and secondary schools?
- Should France abolish school catchment areas and introduce education vouchers?
- Should teachers be massively recruited and their salaries increased?
- Should school uniforms be made mandatory in public schools?
- Should apprenticeships and work-study programmes be massively expanded?
- Should ability-based groups in French and maths be introduced in middle school?
- Should teachers' authority be strengthened and grade repetition made possible again?
- Should environmental education become compulsory throughout schooling?
- Should a full public early-childhood service be created with a childcare place for every child?
- Should free school breakfasts be provided in all primary schools?
- Is a demanding, high-level public education system necessary?
Energy
- Should France leave the European electricity market?
- Should France suspend all new wind power projects until its nuclear fleet is fully restarted?
- Should France extend its nuclear reactors to 60 years and build new EPRs and SMRs?
- Should France gradually phase out nuclear power in favour of renewables?
- Should France exit the EU electricity market to lower prices?
- Should massive construction of new nuclear power plants be relaunched?
- Should France leave the EU electricity market and renationalize EDF?
- Should France massively relaunch nuclear power and stop wind farms?
- Should France aim for 100% renewable electricity?
- Should all public subsidies to fossil fuels be ended?
- Should thermal renovation of poorly insulated homes be free for low-income households?
- Should nuclear power be maintained alongside a rapid build-out of renewables?
Environment
- Should nuclear energy be part of our climate solution?
- Should short-haul flights be banned where a train alternative exists?
- Should nuclear energy be expanded to fight climate change?
- Should the ZFE low-emission zones be definitively abandoned?
- Should domestic flights be abolished when a train alternative of less than four hours exists?
- Should the state implement ecological economic planning?
- Should a "green rule" be adopted, limiting resource extraction to what nature can regenerate?
- Should a moratorium be placed on new wind turbine construction?
- Should France aim for carbon neutrality by 2050?
- Should environmental policy prioritize pragmatic innovation over bans?
- Should French farmers be protected by a food sovereignty policy?
- Should a massive thermal renovation plan for housing be launched?
- Should France phase out synthetic pesticides in agriculture?
- Should short domestic flights be banned when a train alternative exists?
- Should advertising for the most polluting products be banned?
- Should land artificialisation be halted with a zero net target?
- Should water be recognised as a common good with protected public management?
- Should intensive livestock farming be phased out?
- Should planetary and climate limits be enshrined in the Constitution?
- Should private jet flights be banned when a train alternative under four hours exists?
- Should the European carbon border tax be strengthened on imported goods?
Europe
- Should France leave the European Union?
- Should the European Union be required to have the ECB convert the portion of sovereign debt it holds into perpetual zero-interest debt?
- Should a new European treaty strengthen the Council and Parliament against the Commission?
- Should France's net financial contribution to the EU be reduced?
- Should Europe's strategic and industrial defence autonomy be strengthened?
- Should Europe's digital and industrial sovereignty be strengthened vis-à-vis the US and China?
- Should EU treaties be renegotiated toward a "Europe of nations"?
- Should European integration be deepened, including on defence and energy?
- Should France leave the European Union?
- Should France stop contributing to the EU budget?
- Should Europe create a common sovereign fund to reindustrialise strategic sectors?
Foreign Policy
- Should the EU increase military aid to Ukraine?
- Will China take over Taiwan?
- Was Russia's invasion of Ukraine "unprovoked"?
- Should Ukraine be invited to join the EU?
- Is NATO expansion the main cause of Russia's invasion of Ukraine?
- Should France share its nuclear deterrent?
- Should France withdraw from NATO's integrated command?
- Should France immediately recognize the State of Palestine?
- Should military and financial support for Ukraine against Russia continue?
- Should the defence budget be raised to at least 3% of GDP?
- Should France leave NATO entirely?
- Should France withdraw from free-trade agreements such as CETA and Mercosur?
- Should frozen Russian assets be seized to finance Ukraine's defence?
- Should military support to Ukraine be increased, including long-range weapons?
- Should imports of goods produced with forced labour be banned?
Health
- Should access to GLP-1 weight-loss drugs be publicly reimbursed?
- Should states launch clinical trials for repurposed drugs that may help treat cancers?
- Could Hantavirus be the next pandemic?
- Are Covid mRNA vaccines dangerous?
- Should mRNA Covid vaccines be urgently withdrawn from circulation?
- Should we ban the purchase of cigarettes ?
- Should Anthony Fauci be prosecuted?
- Should healthcare be made fully free by eliminating extra fees and out-of-pocket costs?
- Should more healthcare staff be recruited and public hospitals given more resources?
- Should France refuse the World Health Organization's pandemic treaty?
- Should freedom of medical choice be enshrined in law?
- Should the installation of doctors be regulated to end medical deserts?
- Should medically assisted dying be legalised in France?
Immigration
- Should birthright citizenship be abolished in France?
- Should we end Shenghen accords to give back control to European countries on immigration?
- Is Schengen obsolete in its current form?
- Should France terminate the 1968 Franco-Algerian agreement on movement and residence?
- Should France cut the number of residence permits issued each year eightfold?
- Should state medical aid for undocumented migrants be replaced by limited emergency care?
- Should France leave the European Convention on Human Rights if it cannot otherwise control immigration?
- Should legal immigration and family reunification be drastically reduced?
- Should a referendum be held on immigration and national identity?
- Should automatic citizenship acquisition through birthright (jus soli) be abolished?
- Should irregular migrants convicted of a crime be systematically deported?
- Should stronger national border controls be restored, including leaving Schengen if needed?
- Should the "double punishment" (prison then deportation) be reinstated for convicted foreign nationals?
- Should the expulsion of criminal foreign nationals and rejected asylum seekers be made faster and easier?
- Should access to certain welfare benefits be conditional on a minimum period of regular residence in France?
- Should France suspend legal non-EU immigration?
- Should annual migration quotas be voted by Parliament?
- Should family reunification for immigrants be abolished?
- Should France carry out a mass return policy for illegal immigrants?
- Should public subsidies to migrant-aid associations be ended?
- Should immigration be drastically reduced through a moratorium?
- Should undocumented workers in shortage occupations be regularised?
Justice
- Should the fight against pedophilia be a government priority?
- Should France restore mandatory minimum sentences and end automatic sentence reductions?
- Should every willing municipality be allowed to arm its municipal police?
- Should more prisons be built and sentences toughened for repeat offenders?
- Should police and gendarmerie staffing be significantly increased?
- Should human and material resources for police and justice be increased?
- Should the justice budget be significantly increased to reduce trial delays?
- Should the age of criminal majority be lowered to 16?
- Should France build 10,000 additional prison places?
Political ideologies
Society
- Should we adopt a four-day work week nationally?
- Should surrogacy be legalized in France?
- Should the law on euthanasia be stopped?
- Should there be a public registry of convicted pedophiles?
- Should a minimum age of 40 be required to run for President of the French Republic?
- Should the death penalty be reinstated for crimes against children?
- Are more and more churches being targeted by likely criminal acts?
- Should social media be banned for those under 16?
- Should CNews be closed down?
- Should the Save Europe Act finally be passed?
- Should French secularism be a simple principle of state neutrality or a tool for republican assimilation?
- Should the French law imposing a social-housing quota on municipalities be repealed?
- Should the legal retirement age be lowered to 60 with a full pension?
- Should a guaranteed minimum income be created for young people and those in precarity?
- Should social housing be built to reach 25% of housing stock in every municipality?
- Should retirement at 60 be allowed for long careers?
- Should certain welfare benefits and social housing be prioritised for French nationals?
- Should the legal retirement age remain at 64?
- Should the Universal National Service (SNU) be made compulsory for all young people?
- Should compulsory national service be restored for young people?
- Should the legal retirement age be raised further beyond 64?
- Should only French first names be allowed in civil registers?
- Should the Islamic veil be banned in all public spaces?
- Should the 2023 pension reform raising the retirement age to 64 be repealed?
- Should the reimbursement of medical expenses for holders of residence permits for medical care be reduced?
- Should the law against squatters be strengthened?
- Should the offense of glorifying terrorism be repealed?
Taxation
- Should inheritance tax be abolished?
- Should France adopt a budgetary "golden rule" capping deficits on current spending?
- Should French business production taxes (C3S, CVAE) be abolished?
- Should VAT on essential goods be reduced?
- Should a wealth tax (ISF), including a climate-related version, be reinstated?
- Should under-30s be exempt from income tax?
- Should the reduction of production taxes on businesses be continued?
- Should VAT be reduced on products manufactured in France?
- Should unproductive (financial) wealth be taxed while exempting productive investment?
- Should a binding multi-year path for public debt reduction be enshrined in law?
- Should inheritance tax be cut?
- Should a minimum 2% annual tax be levied on fortunes above 100 million euros?
- Should a European minimum corporate tax be imposed to end fiscal dumping?
- Should a tax on corporate superprofits be created?
Technology
- Should social media platforms be regulated as public utilities?
- Should social media platforms be required to verify user identity?
- Should massive investment be made to develop sovereign French and European artificial intelligence?
- Should strategic industries (medicines, semiconductors) be relocated to France?