A deep understanding of the use of deliberative processes requires a political ethnography able to detect their consequences for the participants and for the public sphere. This article analyses a participatory process organised in France by an activist-professional facilitator with a small group of bureaucrats and marginalized individuals, designed to promote mutual understanding and raise public issues. This ethnography shows that deliberation in small groups, rather than merely producing consensus and reproducing inequalities in accessing forms of public expression as is sometimes alleged, may generate at least preliminary politicization and the publicization of social issues in working-class districts. These rather fragile effects raise the question of the continuity of collective action and institutional transformations generated by deliberative processes.