The free, city-wide public programme run by Le Cercle des Économistes alongside its Rencontres Économiques d'Aix-en-Provence forum: in 2026, more than 45 debates, film screenings, walking tours, theatre performances, and youth workshops spread across Aix-en-Provence from 27 June to 4 July, with no 2027 edition dates announced yet.
OFF des Rencontres Économiques d'Aix-en-Provence is a free, city-wide public programme run by Le Cercle des Économistes in Aix-en-Provence, built around the same annual theme as the think tank's main Rencontres Économiques forum. Rather than panel debates for an invited audience, it uses cultural and participatory formats, walking tours, theatre, film-and-debate evenings, workshops, and games, aimed at residents, students, and families who would not otherwise attend an economics conference. It launched in 2025 and its second edition ran in 2026.
No 2027 dates have been published as of 3 September 2026: the Rencontres Économiques' own city partner, the Mairie d'Aix-en-Provence, states on its event page that "the official dates of the Rencontres Économiques Aix 2027 are not yet published." The 2026 edition, the most recent held, ran 27 June to 4 July 2026. It was spread across the city, with the information and welcome point at Fontaine de la Rotonde, open 10:00 to 18:00 daily; the closed-door Rencontres Économiques main forum that the OFF surrounds ran 2 to 4 July 2026 at Parc Jourdan. Whether the 2027 OFF will keep the same eight-day window relative to the main forum is not publicly disclosed.
Le Cercle des Économistes, a French economic think tank founded in 1992 by Jean-Hervé Lorenzi, based in Paris. The Cercle created the Rencontres Économiques d'Aix-en-Provence in 2001 and launched the OFF as its public-access companion programme in 2025. Press and general enquiries for the OFF specifically go to reaix-off@cercledeseconomistes.fr.
1,200 participants, an organiser figure reported for the 2025 launch edition; no updated attendance count has been published for the larger 2026 programme. The target audience as stated by the organiser: general public, students, youth, families, educators, local entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, associations, and cultural organisations. This is a citizen and civic audience, not the executives, economists, and policymakers who make up the Rencontres Économiques' own main-forum audience, covered in eventsindex's separate fiche for that event.
Scale and process, mainly. The 2025 launch year had no published open call; for 2026, Le Cercle des Économistes ran a formal call for projects, closing 27 February 2026, inviting businesses, foundations, associations, and cultural and educational bodies to propose events under the year's theme, "Navigating a World Without Landmarks." That call drew roughly 55 partner organisations and produced a programme of more than 45 events, up from an unspecified, evidently smaller count in 2025. No 2027 changes are documented, since no 2027 edition has been announced.
More than 45 events built around the theme "Navigating a World Without Landmarks" ("Naviguer dans un monde sans repères"), the same theme as the 2026 Rencontres Économiques main forum. Documented examples: an economic walking tour of Aix-en-Provence read through its urban development, a theatre production on the 18th-century grain trade ("Dialogues sur le commerce des blés"), a satirical play on wealth and ambition ("J'aurais voulu être Jeff Bezos"), film screenings followed by moderated debate on subjects including water cycles and homelessness, an eloquence competition, and a round table on heritage and territorial economics. Recurring themes across the programme: local economy, sustainable and digital transition, social cohesion, heritage as an economic driver, and the economic shaping of urban space. events.db tags the programme with six labels: economic accessibility, citizen dialogue, cultural programming, youth engagement, interdisciplinary debate, and navigating uncertainty.
The OFF does not feature a traditional speaker lineup: it hosts citizen-facing facilitators, local artists, educators, and association representatives across its 45+ events, rather than named keynote speakers. Named participants documented in research, a partial list drawn from partner institutions' own announcements rather than an official OFF-wide roster: Christophe Barbier and Helman Le Pas de Sécheval (performers, "Dialogues sur le commerce des blés," Sciences Po Aix, 30 June); the Aix'loquence eloquence competition jury, headed by Sciences Po Aix director Alessia Lefébure and including Marilyn Carnier, Nathalie Chusseau, Claude Pelopidas, and Solène Saint-Gilles (30 June); Sophie Doudet (art history lecture, 2 July); and cartoonist Nicolas Keramidas (book dedications, 3 July). The remaining facilitators across the 45+ events are not named in the sources reviewed.
No single format. The 2026 programme mixed walking tours, film screenings with post-screening debate, theatre performances, an eloquence competition, serious games and escape-room style activities, outdoor "terrasse économique" discussion sessions, and standard round tables and conferences, run across roughly 30 venues including schools, theatres, cafés, and public squares.
The relationship runs the other way: OFF des Rencontres Économiques d'Aix-en-Provence is itself the side, public-facing programme that surrounds the Rencontres Économiques main forum, an invitation-oriented gathering of economists, executives, and policymakers held on a subset of the same dates (2 to 4 July 2026 at Parc Jourdan, inside the OFF's 27 June to 4 July window). Within the OFF itself, no further tier of side events distinct from its own programme was found; partner institutions such as Sciences Po Aix ran their own mini-programmes (an eloquence competition, a theatre performance, an art history lecture) inside the wider OFF week.
Free for the general public. No ticket is sold and no price tier exists. Some individual events require prior sign-up through the official programme page, at the organiser's discretion, but this carries no fee.
There is no individual speaker application. The OFF is built through an annual call for projects aimed at organisations, closing 27 February 2026 for the 2026 edition, open to businesses, foundations, associations, and cultural or educational bodies rather than individuals. A person wanting to lead a session, a talk, or a workshop needs to do so through a partner organisation's submitted proposal. Questions go to reaix-off@cercledeseconomistes.fr. No 2027 call has been published.
The OFF has no sponsorship tiers or exhibitor passes. The equivalent path is the same call for projects used by prospective speakers and facilitators: proposals for the 2026 edition closed 27 February 2026, submitted via an online form, with results announced in March 2026 and preparation running April to June 2026. Contact: reaix-off@cercledeseconomistes.fr. No process for 2027 is currently published.
No tiered sponsor list is published, and events.db holds none for this record. What is documented is a network of roughly 55 partner organisations selected through the 2026 call for projects, mostly educational and cultural bodies rather than commercial sponsors. Named 2026 partners identified in research: Sciences Po Aix, ESSCA, ESAAIX, the student association Aix'loquence, Théâtre Ainsi de Suite, and Café 3C. The remaining partner organisations are not individually named in the sources reviewed.
This question does not map cleanly onto the OFF, which runs no company sponsor floor. The roughly 55 partner organisations behind the 2026 programme are mostly educational institutions (Sciences Po Aix, ESSCA, ESAAIX), cultural venues (a theatre, a café hosting debates), and civic associations, not businesses seeking commercial exposure. Local entrepreneurs and shopkeepers appear in the organiser's stated target audience as attendees, not as sponsoring companies.
No accreditation process specific to the OFF was found. The OFF's events are free and open to the public, so a journalist can attend them as any other member of the public without applying for a pass. The Cercle des Économistes' general media contacts, used for the main Rencontres Économiques forum, are Alban Schneyder (alban.schneyder@cercledeseconomistes.fr) for coverage enquiries and Anne Bidoli (anne.bidoli@cercledeseconomistes.fr) for photo requests; whether they also field OFF-specific requests is not stated on the pages reviewed.
Coverage found is limited and mostly organiser-adjacent. Presse Agence ran two announcement articles ahead of the 2026 edition, on the call for projects and on the citizen-facing programme itself. Sciences Po Aix, a 2026 partner institution, published its own article detailing the events it hosted. No independent general-interest press coverage of the OFF specifically, as distinct from the ticketed Rencontres Économiques main forum, was found. events.db carries no official_media_partners entry for this record.
Two tiers, both close to the organiser rather than independent. Presse Agence's articles read as wire-style announcements built from organiser material rather than original reporting. Sciences Po Aix's article is a partner institution promoting its own contribution to the programme, not third-party coverage. No outlet independent of the organiser or its partners was found reporting specifically on the OFF; the main Rencontres Économiques forum draws separate, broader press attention that should not be read as coverage of the OFF programme itself.
Anyone looking for B2B networking, a sponsor or exhibitor floor, or accreditation into the Rencontres Économiques' own closed-forum sessions: the OFF has none of these. It also runs in French throughout, with no published English-language track, so attendees needing English-language programming should look to the main forum's international speaker sessions instead, or skip both.
It is not itself a fixture of the B2B economic forum circuit; it is the public annex to one, the Rencontres Économiques d'Aix-en-Provence, which runs each summer in Aix-en-Provence and is covered in eventsindex's own separate fiche. The OFF's role in that calendar is civic rather than professional: it extends the same annual theme into public, free programming for eight days rather than three.
No. No other city edition of the OFF was found. It is structurally tied to Le Cercle des Économistes' Aix-en-Provence forum and has not been reported as a travelling or replicated format elsewhere.
French throughout. No English-language OFF sessions were found in the 2026 programme, though the Rencontres Économiques main forum it surrounds does host some international, multilingual sessions.
Not for the OFF's own events. The Rencontres Économiques main forum livestreams its plenary sessions and posts replays on its website and YouTube channel the day after broadcast, but no equivalent livestream or replay was found for the OFF's own walking tours, theatre performances, film screenings, or workshops, which are in-person, city-based formats by design.
Not applicable in the usual sense: almost all OFF events are free, with no ticket purchase, so there is no fee to refund. Some events require prior sign-up; no published cancellation policy or no-show terms for that sign-up were found.
Not publicly disclosed. No accessibility statement was found on the official OFF page, the programme page, or the FAQ page of the wider Rencontres Économiques site.
Fontaine de la Rotonde sits on Place de la Rotonde, at the foot of Cours Mirabeau in central Aix-en-Provence, and served as the OFF's information and welcome point in 2026, open 10:00 to 18:00 daily. It is within walking distance of Aix-en-Provence's central bus station. Since the OFF itself runs across roughly 30 venues city-wide rather than a single site, the fountain functions as the orientation point rather than the location of most individual events; specific venue addresses are published event by event in the official programme.
Read the jump from an informal 2025 launch to a structured, roughly 55-partner, 45-event programme in 2026 as institutionalisation, not organic growth: Le Cercle des Économistes moved from simply running the OFF itself to formalising it as an open call for projects with a published deadline, a selection process, and a set preparation calendar. That is the behaviour of an organiser turning a pilot into a recurring civic fixture, not a one-off experiment.
The contrast with the Rencontres Économiques main forum is the tell: that event publicises a precise, updated headline figure each year (8,000 participants and 410 speakers for 2026) and a roster of 40-plus named media partners, while the OFF still rests on a single self-reported number from its 2025 launch and no press-partner list of its own. Read the OFF's lighter public reporting as a sign of where the organiser's promotional effort is concentrated, on the ticketed main forum, not as evidence the OFF matters less to attendees on the ground.
Official site: https://www.lesrencontreseconomiques.fr/off-rencontres-economiques/. Programme: https://www.lesrencontreseconomiques.fr/off-rencontres-economiques/programme-off/. Partner call for projects: https://www.lesrencontreseconomiques.fr/envie-de-vous-associer-au-off/. Organiser: Le Cercle des Économistes, https://lecercledeseconomistes.fr. X (Twitter): @Cercle_eco. Instagram: @cercle_eco. YouTube: youtube.com/user/RencontresEcoAix. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/cercle-des-economistes. The OFF's own contact address is given in the become-speaker and become-sponsor entries above.