Laurent Giovachini is Deputy CEO of Sopra Steria and President of the Syntec Federation. He recently published an economic essay,
The new paths to growth: how the knowledge industry will shape the world
, published by Dunod.
The speech conveyed by certain candidates for the presidential election on the supposed decline of our country and its lost greatness finds a growing echo with our fellow citizens.
However, if it is no longer a “great power” (has it ever been, except perhaps – and still very briefly – under the reigns of Louis XIV and Napoleon I?), France today enjoys an influence and influence in the world that remain eminently enviable.
France has a position that is disproportionate to the non-negligible strength of its economy and even more so to its demographic weight.
Laurent Giovachini
Indeed, through its long existence as a nation, its overseas presence and its vast maritime space, its extensive diplomatic network, its status as a nuclear power and as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, it has the central role that 'it plays with Germany within the European Union, the vitality of its cultural and artistic production (to which we can add the diversity of its landscapes, the clemency of its climate and the richness of its heritage), of a a position out of proportion with the non-negligible strength of its economy and even more so with its demographic weight.
Such a situation, on the whole favorable (despite fragilities and risks), France has not known the like – far from it – throughout its history.
In its history, France regularly went through long periods during which greatness was not the qualifier that best suited it.
Laurent Giovachini
Would those who hold to the thesis of decline prefer to live in 1940, the year when we were confronted in a few weeks with an unprecedented material and moral collapse?
In 1871, when after being severely beaten by the Prussians, we had to cede Alsace and part of Lorraine?
In 1815, when, after the defeat at Waterloo, it took all the skill of Talleyrand at the Congress of Vienna to save what could still be saved?
In 1763, after the Treaty of Paris was signed which consecrated the United Kingdom as the first world power and our eviction from India and North America?
Yet these are only a few of the most critical moments in the history of a country that regularly went through long periods during which greatness was not the qualifier that best suited it.
What can be said, for example, of a Fourth Republic marked certainly by robust economic growth, but also by governmental instability, a strong dependence on the United States, the not very glorious episodes of Dien Bien Phu and Suez, and the Algerian war ?
But then where does this shared feeling come from that France was once so big and so powerful?
Probably less of his former colonial empire than of the “sleight of hand” successfully operated by General de Gaulle at the end of the Second World War and even more from 1958.
Read alsohttps://amp.lefigaro.fr/story/christine-clerc--on-rend-hommage-a-de-gaulle-car-nous-sommes-en-declin-14651
De Gaulle allowed the French, by his vision, his posture and his cheek, to “travel in first class with a second ticket”.
Laurent Giovachini
This one not only made us believe - by taking ample liberties with the historical truth - that France had been a nation of resistance fighters who had more or less liberated itself, but also allowed us, by his vision, his posture and, to be honest, his nerve, of
“traveling in first class with a second ticket”.
The 1960s – which, moreover, coincided economically with the second part of the Glorious Thirties – thus saw our country
“rise above itself”
, playing in the context of the Cold War an original score between the two Blocs and deserve for a time the appellation of "great nation" (die große Nation) which France was then decked out by neighbors across the Rhine who were half mocking, half admiring (and themselves in the inability to challenge us for political primacy in Europe because of the shadow cast by Nazism and the division between the FRG and the GDR).
As successful as Gaull's tour de force was, it cannot conceal the fact that France has known in its history as many lows as highs and that it is today as "great", if not more, than in many past ages.
To “maintain our rank” and ward off the threat of downgrading, we will certainly need to proceed more vigorously than we have hitherto with essential structural reforms.
Despite the recent improvement on the front of growth and unemployment, the worrying evolution of several indicators (wealth produced per capita, balance of foreign trade, level of indebtedness, etc.) highlights the intrinsic fragilities of our economy : we cannot hope to continue to play a significant role in Europe and in the world if we do not remedy this.
But we must at the same time manage to transcend the divisions that undermine our social cohesion by forging a collective project in which a large majority of French people can identify.
As long as our fellow citizens do not have the feeling of belonging to a community of destiny driven by the same ambition and the same hope, it is a safe bet that many of them will continue to take refuge in the convenient nostalgia of a greatness largely fantasized.
Laurent Giovachini
Reconciliation with scientific and technical progress, battle for training and skills, reindustrialization and economic sovereignty, construction of Defense Europe, digital revolution, health policy, decarbonization and preservation of biodiversity, revitalization of territories, restart of social mobility, integration of our compatriots with an immigrant background, parity and diversity, democratic renewal…: these are not the issues that are lacking, but women, men, political parties, institutions, think tanks, intermediate bodies capable of articulating them within a coherent framework of reflection, proposal and action likely to be made available to all.
As long as our fellow citizens do not have the feeling of belonging to a community of destiny driven by the same ambition and the same hope, it is a safe bet that many of them will continue to take refuge in the convenient nostalgia of a greatness largely fantasized.
