Contenu du sommaire

In 2017, in the run-up to the French presidential elections, Futuribles launched a series of articles aimed at considering the lack of vision that is a recurrent theme in commentary on political life. With the presidential election now behind us, an election that produced a major recasting of the traditional political landscape, other changes were to be expected in the way political power is exercized at the highest levels of State. And there have admittedly been changes, but given the fierce outburst of discontent that emerged in late November 2018, these have not met the expectations of part of the French population. In fact, without going into the core issues that have roused the “yellow vests” and those who defend or condemn them, it seems appropriate, at this juncture, to resume this series. It is a local politician, Johanna Rolland, the mayor of Nantes, who gives her viewpoint here on what it means to have a political vision and the way that vision can and must be given concrete embodiment at the local level. She shows how this plays out in her metropolis and how citizens are involved in the change that is designed to meet the economic, social and ecological challenges of the area. In her view, both in our local authorities and at the national level, we are at the dawning of a democratic transition that must eventually enable us to respond to the various other transitions currently facing our societies.

It is often said that the digital transition could be conducive to ecological transition by making it possible, for example, to substitute telecommunications for transport or by helping to optimize energy flows – of electricity, in particular. There is, however, no evidence for such a happy conjecture. On the contrary, a study by the Shift Project, whose findings are presented here by Hugues Ferreboeuf, reveals that the energy consumption entailed in the production of digital equipment and its use is growing to a very substantial degree, as indeed is the consumption of scarce metals. Hence, these allegedly virtuous activities are having a negative impact on the climate and natural resources. This trend is not inevitable, but reversing it would require radical change.

Since 2000, CREDOC (the French Research Centre for “the Study and Observation of Living Conditions”) has carried out an annual survey on the use of digital technology in France. Given how advances in IT have accelerated and the rapid spread of that technology, this study is an excellent way of grasping how society is (or is not) taking up the new tools and applications in this area – and of teasing out its expectations and fears with regard to the spread of digital. In this article, André-Yves Portnoff outlines the main lessons of the Baromètre du numérique 2018 [Barometer of the Digital 2018], which confirms the powerful position the smartphone now occupies at the heart of French people's digital lives. It throws light on their use of the Internet, the way they communicate with the outside world, the take-up of social networks etc., highlighting, along the way, the knock-on effects there might be in terms of the social bond and certain economic activities. We shall return to this subject in a future issue to consider how screens impact on the operation of our brains.

This autumn, Futuribles launched a series on the contributions of business to the common good. Among the proposed articles are various accounts from actors in organizations working to promote the general interest. After Initiative France and the Schneider Electric foundation, it falls to a large-scale public company, the French railway network, to outline the activities of its SNCF Foundation. Marianne Eshet, General Secretary of the SNCF Foundation, shows, for example, how it contributes in France to improving the common good along two major lines of action : “Living together” and “Doing together”. She explains how the foundation's collective strategies have emerged and how they have been embodied in partnerships, according to the needs identified. Three examples illustrate this commitment : “inter-associativity”, which aims to bring together various NGOs around a common project, is illustrated here by the “Doing Together with our Differences” programme ; the co-construction of projects at the local level is exemplified by the Fabrique Opéra [Opera Factory] cultural project ; and the co-construction of projects on a national scale by the development of the Alliance for Education. These variable-geometry partnerships show the relevance and success potential of more informal alliances and arrangements between enterprises, on the one hand, and public and private actors, on the other, to further the general interest.

This autumn, Futuribles began a series on the contribution of enterprises to the promotion of the common good. Among the articles in that series was a presentation of the way French enterprises have been involved, over the years, in public interest missions – as well as various accounts by actors in organizations working in that general direction. That series is continued in this issue with another stakeholder testimony (a piece by Marianne Eshet on the SNCF Foundation) and with this article by Philippe-Henri Dutheil laying out the legal regime that applies to social enterprises in three of France's European neighbours. By the time this issue appears, the French Senate should have come to a decision on the PACTE law (Plan of Action for the Growth and Transformation of Enterprises), which was passed this autumn by the National Assembly and makes provision, among other things, for facilitating and regulating the new legal category of entreprise à mission (English : “benefit company” or “benefit corporation”), which first appeared in 2015 and allows enterprises to include their commitment to the general interest in their memorandum and articles of association. Here Philippe-Henri Dutheil outlines the legal options that enterprises have in Belgium, Italy and Luxemburg to encourage and enable them to play their part in promoting the common good. Since these three countries have legal systems quite similar to the French, they may serve as a source of inspiration to French lawmakers to continue down this same path.

At the beginning of 2019 a law came into force in France on the freedom to choose one's occupational future. It was passed originally in the late summer of 2018. Among other employment-related measures, that law reforms apprenticeships and vocational training, the aim being to simplify the existing schemes and to encourage working people, whatever their situation, to train and maintain their skills throughout their lifetimes. This reform of vocational training follows several other reforms in this area, but what does it add, and does it meet the needs of French working people ?Paul Santelmann, a specialist in the field of employment and skills, offers insight here into the evolution of the French system of continuing training, taking the view that it doesn't meet the training needs of the least skilled workers and young people. He offers various points of comparison with other European countries and stresses the – still insufficient – nature of the measures adopted in late 2018. Despite some advances, particularly in terms of learning and the accountability of actors (enterprises, working people…), this reform is in danger of not going far enough to rebalance on-the-job training against initial training, and to maintain the employability of the least skilled workers and the most hard-to-place jobseekers.