The process leading to the establishment of the Conseil national des programmes (CNP) included a consultation phase in the form of academic colloquia where teachers and the usual partners but also actors exterior to the schools were to express themselves regarding academic programs and contents. These were also a way of countering the opposition and in particular the unions, and to highlight the thinking of the Bourdieu-Gros committee and of the various thematic committees put in place a year before. This paper examines the diversity of organisational modalities retained by the organisers, and the themes discussed, but also the critiques levied at the way the edu-cational system was functioning as well as the thinking about it. Despite the impossibility at the time of agreeing on a national synthesis the CNP could have used, these opportunities for exchange and debate did allow the different stakeholders, whatever their status, to express their expectations and to imagine desirable changes for the immediate or later future.