Each November, Lyon hosts one of Europe's rare economics events designed entirely for the public: three days of free, open conferences bringing together Nobel laureates, policy thinkers and citizens to debate the forces reshaping contemporary economies, with no ticket price and no professional gatekeeping.
The Journées de l'Économie, universally known as the Jéco, is an annual three-day public economics festival founded in Lyon in 2008. All sessions are free and open upon registration, making it one of the few large-scale economics events in Europe that actively targets a non-specialist audience alongside researchers and policy professionals. The festival is organised by the Fondation Innovation et Transitions in close partnership with ENS Lyon, and takes place across several sites in the city each November. According to the organiser, the event now draws more than 40,000 participants and features approximately 65 conferences with over 250 speakers per edition.
The Jéco was created in 2008 by Pascal le Merrer, then a teacher at ENS de Lyon, with an explicit public-education mission: to bring rigorous economic thinking into contact with a broad civic audience at a moment when economic issues were increasingly shaping everyday lives but remaining opaque to most citizens. The festival deliberately avoids the closed, fee-based format of professional conferences and instead occupies public and university spaces across Lyon, inviting students, teachers, journalists and curious citizens to attend the same sessions as economists and policymakers.
Over nearly two decades the event has grown from a small academic initiative into one of France's best-known venues for economic debate. Its combination of intellectual seriousness, free access and a genuinely mixed audience has given it a distinctive position: economists of international standing regularly agree to present and debate in a setting designed for accessibility rather than peer-to-peer academic exchange. The result is a programme that covers both technical economic research and the broader social, political and environmental questions in which economic choices are embedded.
The Jéco draws a deliberately heterogeneous crowd, shaped by its free-access model and its location in a major French university city.
This mix of professional and lay participants is central to the Jéco's identity. The presence of students and the general public alongside Nobel laureates and ministers creates an unusual dynamic that shapes both the format and the register of presentations, which tend to be accessible without sacrificing substance.
Each edition organises its programme around a unifying theme that reflects the central economic tensions of the moment. The 2025 edition was titled "Vieux démons et nouveaux mondes" (Old demons and new worlds), addressing the simultaneous return of historical fractures (inequality, nationalism, financial instability) and the emergence of new structural pressures (artificial intelligence, climate breakdown, demographic ageing). The 2026 theme had not been announced as of June 2026, though the broad framing on the official site points to the tensions between inherited economic structures and the demands of rapid transition.
Recurring subject areas across editions include international trade and geopolitics, climate economics and the energy transition, inequality and redistribution, labour markets and the future of work, monetary policy and financial stability, the economics of artificial intelligence, European integration, and public health economics. Sessions span formal lectures, panel debates, roundtable discussions and dedicated workshops aimed at students and educators. The Matinale de l'Économie, a morning series, offers a more focused format for specific audience segments. All session recordings are archived through the affiliated platform touteconomie.org and through SES-ENS, extending the reach of the content well beyond the event itself.
The Jéco has built a consistent track record of attracting economists of the first rank to a free public event, which is relatively unusual. Past editions have featured Jean Tirole (Toulouse School of Economics, Nobel Prize 2014), Esther Duflo (MIT, Nobel Prize 2019), Philippe Aghion (Collège de France), Thomas Piketty (EHESS/Paris School of Economics), Joseph E. Stiglitz (Columbia University, Nobel Prize 2001), Daron Acemoglu (MIT, Nobel Prize 2024), Hélène Rey (London Business School) and Jean Pisani-Ferry (Sciences Po/Bruegel). The 2025 edition also featured Alexandra Roulet, Pierre Haski and Clément Beaune. The 2026 roster had not been announced as of June 2026.
The Jéco was founded in 2008 by Pascal le Merrer at ENS de Lyon as a small series of public lectures. Over the following years it grew steadily in scale and ambition, becoming a fixture of the French economics calendar and attracting national media coverage. The 2026 edition will be the 19th. The move from a largely academic initiative to an event drawing 40,000 participants reflects both the growing public appetite for economic literacy and the deliberate investment by the Fondation Innovation et Transitions in broadening the audience. The festival has maintained its founding commitment to free access throughout its growth, which distinguishes it from most comparable European events.
It is a public festival. Unlike invitation-only or paid professional conferences, the Jéco is open to anyone who registers, at no cost. The programme is designed to be accessible to non-specialists while remaining rigorous enough to engage researchers and policymakers. Both communities attend the same sessions.
All sessions are conducted in French. The event is a francophone public forum and does not provide simultaneous interpretation. Attendees should be comfortable with spoken French to follow the debates.
An academic conference is primarily a forum for researchers to present and critique work-in-progress among peers. The Jéco is structured as a civic education event: speakers are typically invited to explain and debate ideas rather than present technical papers, sessions are open to the public, and the audience mix includes students and citizens with no economics background. The format favours moderated debate and accessible presentation over academic paper delivery.
The Jéco takes place across several sites in Lyon each November, with ENS de Lyon serving as the anchor institution and main hub. ENS de Lyon (15 Parvis René Descartes, 69007 Lyon) provides lecture halls, seminar rooms and outdoor space suitable for large public gatherings. Additional events take place at other city venues including the Hôtel de Lassay, which hosts the Matinale de l'Économie series. The distributed format across a university campus and other city locations reinforces the festival's civic character and makes it accessible to a broad Lyon audience. The festival's multi-site structure means attendees typically move between venues across the three days.
The Fondation Innovation et Transitions (contact: jeco@fondation-fit.org; address: 3, Place de la Bourse, 69002 Lyon) is the primary organising body for the Jéco. It works in close partnership with ENS Lyon, which provides institutional anchoring, academic credibility and physical infrastructure. The Foundation's mission is to promote economic literacy and public engagement with contemporary challenges through events, educational resources and research dissemination. It manages the festival's programming, logistics and communications, and maintains the affiliated digital platforms touteconomie.org and the SES-ENS educational archive.
ENS Lyon's involvement as a co-organiser connects the Jéco to one of France's foremost research institutions in economics and social sciences, ensuring access to academic networks, hosting capacity and the institutional credibility needed to attract speakers of international standing. The partnership between a public-facing foundation and a research university is central to the Jéco's ability to operate at the intersection of academic rigour and civic accessibility.
The Jéco stands apart in the European economics calendar as a fully free, city-wide festival drawing 40,000 people annually in Lyon, giving it a civic reach and public legitimacy that closed professional conferences cannot match.
Admission to all Jéco conferences and debates is free. Registration is required and can be completed through the official website at journeeseconomie.org. The event is open to anyone: no professional affiliation, academic credential or invitation is needed to attend. The Matinale de l'Économie sub-series follows the same free-registration model.
Because demand for popular sessions can be high, early registration is advisable, particularly for keynote lectures featuring well-known speakers. No paid tiers or premium access exist: all attendees have access to the same programme on the same terms.
Registration is required for all sessions according to the official website. Walk-in access is not confirmed for all events. Registering early is recommended, particularly for keynote lectures and sessions with high anticipated demand.
Sessions are spread across multiple sites in Lyon, primarily ENS de Lyon (15 Parvis René Descartes, 69007 Lyon) and other city venues. The detailed programme with room-by-room assignments is published on journeeseconomie.org in the weeks before the festival.
Sessions from previous editions are archived on touteconomie.org and through SES-ENS, making past content widely accessible after the event. Whether the 2026 edition will include live-streaming for individual sessions had not been confirmed as of June 2026.
| Official website | https://www.journeeseconomie.org/ |
| Organiser (Fondation Innovation et Transitions) | https://fondation-fit.org/ |
| Register | https://www.journeeseconomie.org/node/16299 |
| https://www.linkedin.com/company/journees-de-leconomie | |
| ENS Lyon partner page | https://www.ens-lyon.fr/savoirs/culture-sciences-et-societe/grands-evenements/les-journees-de-leconomie-les-jeco |
| Video archive | https://touteconomie.org/ |