Contenu du sommaire : Numéro anniversaire : la revue a 50 ans

The issue of an ageing population—a phenomenon which was among the easiest to predict, as is recalled at the beginning of this article—has undoubtedly been one of the subjects most often broached in Futuribles since its creation. For example, Alain Parant was already writing about it in March 1979 (issue n° 21) in an article “Croître ou vieillir [Grow or Age]”, in which he warned of the consequences that would eventually ensue in France for intergenerational balance and hence for the funding of pension schemes. Four decades later (and after so many other articles published on the subject in these columns, by demographers, sociologists, economists etc.), he shows here, with Hugues de Jouvenel, how the reforms of the French pensions system have been an obstacle course, though one which has yet to be completed.Their article goes back over the chronology of those reforms since the 1980s and the original mistake of setting a legal retirement age which, despite the legislators' good intentions, ran contrary to developments in demography, to social justice, to the balance between the generations, and to the country's economic dynamics. De Jouvenel and Parant break down the various successive attempts to reform the system, stressing their respective virtues and limits, and the various missed opportunities. And while the subject remains a topical one for a shaky French government, they call for the establishment of a points-based, universal pensions system, based solely on duration of contributions, without reference to a retirement age and closely geared in to employment policy.

The year of Futuribles' birth—1975—was also the year of the first ‘summit of the industrialized countries', which inaugurated what was to become a regular occurrence: a meeting between the heads of state of the biggest economic powers (G7, G20). These meetings complement those within the multinational arenas established after 1945 (United Nations, Atlantic Alliance etc.), though they offer a less institutional framework (with no specialized administrative structure). This was a time of peak multilateralism in what was, admittedly, a context of Cold War, but also of increasing globalization, something which would be further accentuated, from the 1990s onwards, after the disappearance of the Communist bloc. For three decades, a situation of relative peace and stability was to follow, against a background of international dialogue and coordination maintained in good times and bad.In 2025 things have changed substantially, with, among other things, Russia's invasion of Ukraine bringing war to European soil again; Hamas's terrorist attack and Israel, in violation of international law, responding with the almost total destruction of the Gaza Strip; a protectionist pullback by the USA against a background of rivalry with China; and the emergence of a ‘post-truth' era, not to mention economic neo-colonialism. The international scene and existing alliances are being completely refashioned and the multilateral arenas in which international issues were previously discussed seem to be losing even what little effectiveness they had. Is there any chance that the World Trade Organization, the international organizations under the UN umbrella, the International Criminal Court and similar institutions will recover sufficient influence and legitimacy to foster a renewal of constructive dialogue between states? To find answers on these topics, we interviewed Guillaume Devin, a political scientist and Professor Emeritus at Sciences Po and an associate researcher at its Center for International Studies. As a specialist in the sociology of international relations, multilateral diplomacy and international organizations, he is the author of several reference works on the subject and also the founder of the GRAM (Multilateral Action Research Group).