The Editorial

In the past week, there have been two events which, from my point of view, telescope: firstly, the end of the elections and the setting up of the new National Assembly, and secondly, the “Microsoft” blackout. What’s the connection?

Let’s start with the Microsoft blackout (or, more precisely, Crowstrike), which, as we’ve seen, was a worldwide outage, normal in a globalized economy affecting airlines, retail chains, TVs and many other sectors. So what is the fundamental problem represented by this incident? Our dependence on oligopolies (GAFAM) in the digital domain, which, contrary to marketing messages, does not make us stronger or more resilient! This incident blatantly demonstrates, but everyone will be quick to forget, that being the vast majority to use a system means that a failure (bug) or malicious act will have a greater impact on our economies.

What does this have to do with the legislative elections? During the debates and programs (well, if we consider that there really were any) did you hear any of the parties represented take an interest in digital technology, which has become the bedrock of our economy and whose future developments will affect and revolutionize our economy even more (AI, quantum computing, etc.)? The answer is no, of course? Yet these are critical issues for our future: how should we view our relationship to training with the arrival of AI? How should we view our relationship with work (A.I., robotics, video, etc.)? Aren’t battles over pensions becoming obsolete in the face of these looming revolutions? I’m not talking about the cultural impact that these technologies are having, since the tools used for the most part are based on American culture, which may seem close to European culture, but is in fact very far removed from it…

Digital technology is all about data, and I don’t know whether our politicians are simply incompetent or in thrall to American interests, to leave them to bear the brunt of American extraterritorial laws and their use against our interests in the economic war the Americans are waging against us… I won’t go into detail on these oft-talked-about subjects, but please feel free to go back and read some of my articles on the subject (www.effisyn-sds.com).

The fundamental issue, the elephant in the room, was barely touched upon: our sovereignty. So you can imagine that digital sovereignty is even less on the agenda… However, it’s worth repeating over and over again that industrial sovereignty is key. Producing in France and holding patents in France means increasing our national wealth, whereas merely selling foreign solutions or providing services using foreign solutions only enriches foreign economic players, improves the wealth of the populations of the countries concerned, and continues to impoverish us in the process.

In view of the current circus being staged by our politicians, which is probably no more than a reflection of our own inconsistency, or more precisely, the belief that by using the same recipes over and over again, we’ll achieve a different result… Yes, all of us at our level, through our choices, our cowardice or our blindness, are responsible for this situation, to which I can see no positive short-term outcome.