L'EDITO

Sovereignty is a theme that has become preponderant in the discourse. We talk about industrial sovereignty, food sovereignty, energy sovereignty and of course digital sovereignty!
What strikes me is that in most of these areas, we have not only had real sovereignty, but we have often been pioneers and leaders in the technological fields! To cite a few examples, we can mention Ariane espace, Airbus, Dassault aviation, Alcatel, Concorde, civil nuclear power, our agri-food industry, etc.
What has happened so that in the space of thirty years we have lost our sovereignty?
Can we allow ourselves to think that the inconsistency of our political personnel, the transfer of whole sections of our national sovereignty to supranational entities, Europe for example, the signing of unbalanced international trade agreements, and without any analysis of the impact on our economy being made!

Can we consider that the choice in the 80’s to favor the consumer over the producer, caused an explosion of the cost of labor in France, clearly penalizing the French industries, whatever the field?
Can we consider that the under-investment in education and public research have also favored this loss of sovereignty?
Can we believe that the French Bashing and the fascination for America, Germany or even China by our ruling elites would have an important responsibility?
Can we allow ourselves to believe that there was no more imbecile idea than to believe that we could have an economy without factories?
But should we collectively absolve ourselves of our ambivalent behavior in our private or professional consumption acts? By always choosing the cheapest solutions in terms of price to the detriment of quality, environment and even social protection, haven’t we participated in the current result?
With a focus on the digital world, are we not guilty of playing against our own side, despite everything we know about the functioning of American or Chinese digital giants? There are French alternatives, especially in social networks, but not only, relevant and with a different philosophy to the American or Chinese alternatives, and if we gave them a chance? To use them too, is not to give up our other habits, it’s just to bring diversity to them!
Not putting all these eggs in the same basket should be our commitment in the digital world as well, and therefore not depending only on American solutions is a good risk management action and a good practice that every business leader should have!