A graduate of the Université libre de Bruxelles and King's College London, Catherine van Offelen is a specialist in security issues in the Sahel and West Africa.
Invariably, poll after poll, France is among the most pessimistic countries in the world. Thus, in 2022, an Ifop survey indicated that 83% of French people did not have confidence in the future. Nothing helps: that the country is among the ten most prosperous nations in the world, the world champion of redistribution, with one of the most developed social models and public services, as well as an invaluable heritage, history and culture. Nigeria and Iraq, countries threatened by famine and civil war, are more optimistic than France.
This paradoxical and so singularly French pessimism, I have often had the opportunity to rub shoulders with him since I arrived in the country, seven years ago. Belgian by birth, I made the choice to acquire French nationality by...
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