"Why not, after having looked at the activities of Members of Parliament, have a look at another part of the way our parliamentary system works: lobbyists."

And that is precisely what Regards Citoyens proposes to do, together with Transparence International France. Based on the public records of parliament they created a list of some 15000 individuals named since 2007. Regard Citoyens calls upon the wider public to help figure out which organizations these 15000 individuals represent.

Their call is not without success: having posted their project only last Wednesday, of the 15000 names already 85% have been identified, with 15% still to go. The top fifty of contributors to the effort are listed on a separate page. The total number of contributors thus far is more than 2700. An impressive effort in just 5 days.

When all 15000 names have been correctly identified and described, it will form the basis for a statistical analysis and research.

Google translation:

"What parliamentarian reports can reveal interesting information? It is found that the influence of lobbyists at the National Assembly is difficult to quantify because of the various forms it can take: informal discussions, meetings, face-to-face, suggested amendments ... The only reliable information data on the contacts they may have with the deputies found in the lists presented in the Annexes to parliamentary reports.

These reports are a synthesis of work undertaken by members of parliament to study the impact of a bill or making a control work. Numerous interviews were conducted to collect views from a maximum of stakeholders. The study of people interviewed in the context of these reports should therefore help to establish an initial mapping of "influencers" deemed important by members.

Before performing a statistical study, we have collected, within these reports, the names of persons interviewed.Over 15,000 in total! The identification of each represents a daunting task, so we decided to seek your assistance in helping us to recognize the organizations represented.

Once done, then we will seek to establish the typology of actors (public bodies, companies, lobbying firms, NGOs, ...) and thus assess whether trends are emerging. This work will be the subject of a study published by our two organizations late 2010, early 2011. The data generated will be accessible to everyone so they can feed the scientific work and citizens around the issue of democratic representation.

If you like our approach, help us identify the people interviewed on our application and feel free to talk about this campaign around you! If you want to be kept informed of developments of this work, just leave us your email so we can notify you of the publication of our work."

See the original posting by Regards Citoyens in French, or go straight to the page where you can still take part in the crowd sourcing.