Contenu du sommaire

Pension reform, which was aborted in 2020 following the Covid-19 crisis, has been part of President Macron's second-term programme since the electoral campaign of Spring 2022. It has been regularly confirmed as being on the government's agenda, despite the absence of an absolute parliamentary majority. Widely regarded as essential for coping with the future funding difficulties created by an ageing population, the details of that reform are the subject of much debate and lively discussion between the social partners in France and this will inevitably continue over the coming months.In this context, the studies carried out this spring by France Stratégie, under Pierre-Yves Cusset's co-ordination, to gauge the impact of demographic ageing on welfare protection in France, represent an essential contribution to debates. This article presents the method of these studies and the main lessons to be drawn. First of all, it is important to remember that this is about measuring the pressure that an ageing population — and that factor alone — exerts on social accounts, working on the basis of the central scenario of the demographic projections published by INSEE. On this basis, were expenditure and income per inhabitant to remain unchanged in each age group, the social welfare deficit would have been 110 billion euros in 2019 if France had had the age pyramid that is anticipated for 2040 (as opposed to the 13 billion euro surplus actually registered in 2019): a massive shock, though Cusset shows that it is more or less of the same order of magnitude as the shock France has already experienced over the last two decades. Moreover, this mechanical impact of ageing is appreciably less great in France than among its European neighbours (particularly Germany and Spain), thanks to the country having a population with a younger age-profile. Though the demographic shock to be expected over the next 20 years is far from negligible (it is estimated at around 5 percentage points of GDP), it may, then, be less difficult to overcome than is generally feared — thanks to the effects of past reforms that are yet to be felt, and provided that there is a modicum of economic growth.

Following our extensive discussion in Futuribles of the dilemma we face in the trade-off between protecting our individual and collective liberties and achieving security, often by digital means, we are opening a new chapter here on the geopolitics of the digital sphere, which, though representing an instrument of power today, may, like many technologies, be both an opportunity and a threat. As Henri d'Agrain explains, the notions of boundary, identity, duration, value etc. that prevail in the physical world assume a different meaning in the digital space, in cyberspace. Within that space are unfolding, in new forms, clashes and conflicts between states — the main guarantors of international order — and supra-state organizations that are likely, in many ways, to carry cyber-threats.Security in this digital space is becoming a major issue, then, as is attested, for example, by attacks intended to breach and paralyse information systems, or by data theft. This is why we need to be vigilant in this regard and implement a national and European digital security strategy which, as d'Agrain argues, must be developed along four axes. These are the development of cybersecurity technologies, the adaptation of policing and judicial-system capacities, the development of specialist capacities in terms of cyber-defence (eminently vested in national governments), and doing away with the “singular status” of the digital industry in the European market.

France, like many other countries, has been confronted for many years with a succession of crises — economic, health-related, geopolitical, energy-related etc. — that have shown the degree to which certain economic sectors had become (or returned to being) strategic. Besides foodstuffs, which have brought the need for a degree of food sovereignty back centre stage, difficulties of supply with regard to certain mineral ores, metals, electronic components, pharmaceutical products etc. have also shown the importance of the industrial sector. After decades of de-industrialization, the need to recover sovereignty in this sector is returning to the top of the political agenda. Is such a thing possible? How? And on what timescale? The economist Élie Cohen examined this question in a book published in the early part of this year, just before the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, and his analyses enable us to throw useful light on the subject. Pierre Papon gives a broad overview of the book here and shows how the question of France's industrial sovereignty has become crucial to its economy and how important it is to set out a genuine strategy in this area.