Jean-Jacques Pluchart The day of 17 October was marked by the behaviour of “savage hordes” who attacked the law enforcement officers and destroyed public buildings and shops. The day was described as “historic” and was the subject of numerous comments in France and abroad, from political leaders and economic experts, but also sociologists and psychologists. The Psychanalyse et Management Institute noted, in particular, that the analysis of the impacts of this event on collective psychology required a thorough understanding of the concepts of catharsis and repression, as well as certain fundamental notions of Freudian psychoanalysis. Only an analysis of the root causes of the phenomenon will make it possible to judge the more or less creative nature of the destruction. The disturbances of 17 October reflect, according to most observers, the catharsis of a minority of “thugs” and “looters” who cannot control their anger and manage their emotions in the face of deadlocked situations and/or an oppressive system that they consider unjust and which can only be rectified through forms of verbal and physical violence, but also creatively, through radical reforms or liberating utopias. Ventilation can have positive effects when it calms conflicts and opens up social dialogue, but more often, it only serves to fuel tensions, especially when the venting is expressed by individuals who are susceptible to mimetic contagion (to the bandwagon effects of contagion and impunity of anonymity encouraged by crowds). In this case, the venting of frustration is the enduring expression of influences of various kinds, of various kinds, combined according to the personalities and the family and school upbringing of the individuals. But 17 October was also marked by manifestations of repression that did not affected not just a few thousand but probably several million French people, in response to the ubiquitous media coverage of physical violence and material damage. Repression is an unconscious psychological defence mechanism unconscious psychological defence mechanism that helps to suppress thoughts, moderate emotions, to temper anxiety and/or to regulate an internal conflict. This repression reflects a particular form of anger and/or sadness on the part of the subject in the face of the impotence of a state, the failure of an institution, the failure of a system, but above all, to the physical inability and/or the quasi-legal prohibition on confronting an attack, or else suffering the humiliation of fleeing or going into exile. This repression is all the more profound and long-lasting when it is combined with the feeling of guilt at being indirectly responsible for the events, through negligence of their warning signs, by failing to foresee their effects and failing to prepare their solutions. Repression has a protective function in the short term, but it gives rise to long-lasting internal conflicts the psychological effects of which are still partly unknown. The combination of these manifestations of catharsis and repression has effects on social life and on economic activity. While the venting of some people has measurable consequences for public finances, insurers’ balance sheets and retailers’ accounts, the repression of millions of citizens has consequences that are more difficult to discern in the medium and long term on productive activities, on saving behaviour and/or on economic patriotism. Only by measuring these disruptive effects economic and societal disruption will make it possible to judge the more or less historical significance of 17 October.
Michel DOUMONT. Du marché à la puissance. Plaidoyer pour une Europe stratège.L’Harmattan, collection « Diplomatie et stratégie », 3 septembre 2026, 198 pages
The author addresses an issue that is currently the subject of considerable debate among the Old Continent’s 450 million citizens: how can Europe’s economic area be transformed into a technological, industrial and political power? The challenge is all the greater given how much the global environment has changed since the 2000s: to the east, with China’s technological take-off; to the west, with the resurgence of nationalism in the United States; and to the south, with the emergence of the “Global South.” The European Union faces multiple disadvantages as a result of divisions among its members over defence, energy, industrial and financial policies. This lack of unity prevents Europeans from building lasting competitive advantages based on control over entire value chains, particularly in the energy, automotive, pharmaceutical and digital sectors. The Union is reduced to little more than a single market, with varying degrees of integration across different activities. European institutions content themselves with issuing directives, charters, recommendations and standards that primarily regulate the distribution and consumption of goods and services. To counter this drift, Michel Doumont identifies three main priorities. The first is to reform the institutions (the Council, Parliament and Commission) so that they can take more consistent and timely decisions in response to external threats. The second is to equip Europe’s 34 million businesses with a skilled and motivated workforce, appropriate financing, preferential access to public procurement, reliable infrastructure and efficient logistical support. The third is to implement a genuine industrial policy at the European level, promoting innovative businesses, protecting viable but vulnerable companies against unfair foreign competition, and integrating strategic industrial value chains. Meeting these three conditions should enable the European Union to safeguard its independence and preserve its sovereignty. Michel Doumont is a Belgian specialist in European institutions and financial systems. Through his book, he expresses the aspiration of one of the founding countries of the European Economic Community to transform it into a genuine European Union. Jean-Jacques Pluchart
Pierre Cahuc & André Zylberberg, La dérive, Eds Albin Michel, octobre 2026,288 pages.
The authors argue that France’s budgetary and financial excesses since 1936 France since 1936 are mainly attributable to increasingly less controlled forms of “joint corporatism” and civil service-based trade union representation. They observe that, for 90 years, the government and parliament have systematically failed to initiate or implement reforms to the healthcare, unemployment insurance and pension systems, which would have made it possible to balance them. The failures of these attempts are said to be due to the hostility of the social partners to any structural reform, for ideological, electoral and/or corporatist reasons. The causes could also be systemic, with the “quasi-regulatory” national extensions of local collective agreements, which the authors consider to be detrimental to employment and public finances. The authors distinguish several periods: from 1936 to the 1990s, “the gradual rise rise of joint corporatism, marked by a growing dependence on public funds and a shift away from accountability on the part of the social partners, then, from the 1990s onwards, an awareness of the dead ends of the French model and of the difficulty – if not the impossibility – of reforming it. The authors then lament that “the State is retreating everywhere”, but that solutions exist. The social model just keeps falling apart—less than one in ten workers is a union member, and yet nowhere else in the world do trade unions and employer organizations hold so much power. How did these organizations gain so many privileges? The answer comes down to two almost forgotten decisions: in 1936, the Popular Front gave these organizations the right to draft the so-called ‘professional laws,’ and the state delegated management of Social Security to these same organizations. This book traces this drift from the Matignon Agreements all the way to Emmanuel Macron’s two five-year terms. The thesis of this book is as follows: by believing they could pacify social relations at low cost, the state opened the way to joint corporatism. This system excludes too many people from activity to claim to maintain a level of social protection that no one wants to see disappear. Beyond this diagnosis, the book also aims to outline ways to restore the French social model with the same actors, the social partners and the state, but on different foundations and principles. The structure of the book is educational and “effective”: those primarily interested in the history of the French social model can read chapters 1 to 9. Those who want to focus on the economic consequences of the drift and possible remedies can go directly to chapters 10 to 12, which analyze the effects of joint corporatism on employment, productivity, and inequalities, and present reform proposals. The following topics are covered: persistence of status-based rents, ongoing conflict, the French case in an international perspective, making collective bargaining a contractual process again, rethinking representation and negotiation, impact on productivity, removal of the union monopoly in professional elections and collective bargaining. Chapter 12 proposes a ‘service-oriented unionism’ with funding linked to membership that builds trust, increased transparency, clarification of areas of action, and continues with a method. The conclusion highlights key ‘unlocking’ points: restoring trust, rebuilding without dismantling, and setting up a citizens’ convention (despite the mediocre results of those put in place during the ‘yellow vests’ period). The appendices conveniently include summary tables of the reform proposals and the three levers to implement (useful for those who skimmed the book), which we leave for readers to discover so as not to spoil the book. Once again, the authors’ personalities make you want to buy this book ‘with your eyes closed’; everyone will find something for themselves… whether you start with the solutions and then move to the causes, or the other way around. Dominique Chesneau et Jean-Jacques Pluchart
David BAVEREZ, Apres le chaos, Novice, 2026, 285 pages.
With his latest book, David Baverez establishes himself as one of the leading experts in global geoeconomics. He certainly owes this highly contested title to his vantage point in Hong Kong, where he resides, in the first city to have defected from the “Western world to the Middle of the Middle Kingdom”. It is certainly more difficult for a European observer – and even more so for a French one – to form, from the Old Continent, an an objective picture of the new balances – or rather of the emerging dynamics of the major global blocs. The book is particularly rich in statistical data, literary references and personal anecdotes. The author demonstrates a flair for a flair for catchy phrases: “the rush for Or-Muz”, “a planet of chaos, not bipolar but apolar”, “four questions for a champion nation”, the “roaring 2020s of the United States”, States”, “the strange defeat of Europe” … Some phrases, however, however, present themselves as riddles to be deciphered. But above all, the author skilfully combines logic and emotion: the logic of Europe’s technological and economic decline; technological and economic decline of Europe; emotion aroused by its seemingly inescapable nature. His diagnosis is unequivocal. Applying Laffer’s principle (“too much tax kills tax”), he concludes that “too much state kills the state”. He shares the current question on the minds of the French people: “Can France reform itself without violence?”. Are the French still capable of engaging in personal reflection rather than emotional reactions, to responsible reasoning rather than to ideological hallucinations? Will the French have time, before submitting to the “troika” (IMF, ECB, European Commission), to dismantle their socio-economic “anti-model” socio-economic “anti-model” and to “construct an original common narrative ” or, failing that, to align themselves with the German social model? David Baverez sets out an arsenal of measures aimed at “turning on the Turgot”, by appealing to personal reflection rather than to emotional reactions, reactions, to soul-searching rather than to indignation or resignation, and a reform of the State through new forms of public-private partnership. David Baverez is a French investor who has been based in Hong Kong since2012. A graduate of HEC Paris and INSEAD, he is the author of several notable bookson China’s strategy, on the transformation ofglobal geopolitics and on economic relations between Asia and the West. Jean-Jacques Pluchart
BERR Eric & BILLOT Sylvain & MARIE Jonathan. Inflation, qui perd ? qui gagne ? pourquoi ? que faire ?, Editions Points, 2026, 128 pages
Following its initial publication in September 2024, the authors have published a new paperback edition. The book mainly covers the period of high inflation observed between 2021 and 2024. The aim of the book is to understand the causes that generated inflation during this period and to demonstrate that “inflation is above all a political matter.” After presenting the various indicators used to analyse price developments, the authors examine the consequences of inflation within society. “According to the OFCE, the 60% of the least affluent households experienced higher-than-average inflation, while the wealthiest 30% faced lower inflation”: deprivation for some, as opposed to a reduction in non-essential spending for others. The authors argue that the profits generated in the energy, agri-food and manufacturing sectors account for a significant share of inflation. Prices rose the most in sectors facing supply shortages caused by scarcities or disruptions in supply chains. Beyond energy-related shocks, they believe that different groups of economic actors play a role in price increases through their position within social relations: the actions of shareholders and corporate executives, wage increases demanded by workers, and government action through fiscal measures. One chapter is devoted to the European Central Bank’s monetary policy, which targets an inflation rate close to 2%. This policy has shown that it is easier to curb inflation by raising key interest rates than to generate inflation in a context of sluggish or even zero growth. The authors question this outdated monetary policy, which they regard as a constraint at a time when the ecological transition requires a large-scale public investment plan. Eric BERR is a senior lecturer in economics at the University of Bordeaux. His research focuses on debt and, more broadly, on the financing of economies, as well as on macroeconomic policies and the sustainability of development models. Sylvain BILLOT is an economist and statistician, a graduate of ENSAE, which trains senior officials for France’s national statistics institute, INSEE. He specialises in national accounting. Jonathan MARIE is a professor of economics at IHEAL-CREDA, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle. His research focuses on macroeconomics. Book review written by Sophie FRIOT
Xavier Jaravel, Emmanuel Monnet, Mathieu Peruyero and Vincent Pons, Economic Policies Put to the Test of Facts, Odile Jacob Publishing, 542 pages.
The ambition of this book is to defend an idea that may, at first sight, appear straightforward: economic policies should be judged on the basis of their observed effects, rather than according to grand egalitarian, utilitarian, liberal, Keynesian, interventionist or other doctrines. The design of public policies should follow an iterative process in which evaluation is integrated at every stage. The authors draw on recent advances in empirical economics, causal evaluation and the use of large databases to establish facts and examine what actually works in such diverse areas as employment, education, public debt, inequality, globalization and the ecological transition. Their approach does not claim that economics could replace political decision-making. On the contrary, they advocate dialogue between those who produce rigorous knowledge, but are sometimes distant from the practical constraints of policymaking, and those involved in action who do not always understand what actually works. The objectives of economic policy and the trade-offs involved must remain collective choices and be subject to democratic debate. Once these objectives have been defined, however, economic analysis can help identify the most effective and least costly policy instruments, and a number of disagreements can be settled empirically. It is within this framework and hybrid approach that the authors make an alarming assessment. France faces major economic challenges while, at the same time, experiencing a technological and industrial decline exacerbated by the AI revolution and climate shocks. They propose an economic strategy structured around six major areas. Education and human capital occupy a central position, as they determine employment, productivity, innovation and the ability to reduce long-term inequalities. Education spending should be directed towards policy levers whose effectiveness has been documented and demonstrated. The authors also emphasize the importance of innovation for growth, but advocate an approach to innovation focused on strategic priorities. With regard to public finances, restoring sound public accounts is a sine qua non for ensuring the sustainability of our social model. Debt must be stabilized, and support measures whose effectiveness has not been demonstrated should be discontinued. On inequality, the book calls for moving beyond redistribution after the fact. Policies relating to early childhood, education, healthcare and access to economic opportunities can reduce disparities at their source. Wealth inequality and inheritance are also among the important issues addressed. This book proposes a new philosophy of public action: diagnose, experiment whenever possible, measure the results, and then adjust. Politics sets the objectives, but facts should guide the choice of means. As Philippe Aghion writes in his preface, “the faster decisions are made and the more fragmented knowledge becomes, the rarer and more necessary a rigorous synthesis of knowledge is.” This book provides precisely that. Xavier Jaravel is Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics and Deputy Chair of the Council of Economic Analysis. Emmanuel Monnet is Inspector General of Finance. Mathieu Peruyero is a senior civil servant and teaches at Sciences Po. Vincent Pons is Professor of Economics at Harvard Business School and a member of the Council of Economic Analysis. Ph. Alezard
Robert Engle, or the Modeling of Financial Volatility
With Benoît Mandelbrot, modern finance was confronted with one of its deepest limitations. Markets do not always behave as classical Gaussian models assume they should. Extreme movements are more frequent, periods of turbulence are more concentrated, and structural breaks occur more often. Financial randomness is not merely continuous and regular; it is often rough, intermittent, and abrupt. Mandelbrot had thus forced finance to confront what the models derived from Bachelier, Wiener, and Black–Scholes–Merton had largely left in the shadows: fat tails, discontinuities, episodes of crisis, and changes of scale. Yet one question remained unanswered. If volatility is not constant, if it rises during periods of stress and declines in calmer phases, how can it be measured? How can it be modeled? How can we move from an empirical observation—that markets experience different regimes of turbulence—to a statistical tool that can be used for forecasting, hedging, pricing, and risk management? Robert Engle provides a decisive answer to precisely this question. His work does not primarily seek to reconstruct the entire edifice of financial theory. Instead, it begins with a simple but essential observation: in financial time series, large price movements tend to be followed by other large movements, while small changes are often followed by other small changes. In other words, volatility clusters into periods. It is not uniformly distributed over time. It has a memory, not necessarily in the direction of prices, but in the intensity of their fluctuations. This property is now known as volatility clustering[1]. It has become one of the most important stylized facts in contemporary empirical finance. In the early 1980s, Robert Engle gave it a rigorous econometric formulation through ARCH models, subsequently paving the way for GARCH models, which would become one of the central tools of modern financial risk measurement. Robert Fry Engle III was born on November 10, 1942, in Syracuse, New York State. His intellectual journey is revealing of the evolution of quantitative finance and economics in the second half of the twentieth century. He began with a scientific education focused on physics before gradually turning to economics. This trajectory is not incidental. Like Bachelier, Wiener, and Mandelbrot, Engle belongs to a family of researchers whose contributions to finance stemmed from a shift between disciplines. He did not come primarily from financial practice, but from a culture of measurement, dynamic models, and the analysis of complex phenomena. [1] Journal of Economic and Social Development (JESD) – Resilient Society, Vol. 10, No. 2, September 2023. After his initial studies, he continued his education at Cornell University, where he earned a PhD in economics. He then taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, followed by the University of California, San Diego, which would become one of the major centers of modern econometrics. He later joined New York University, where his work moved even closer to practical financial applications. This academic trajectory placed him at the intersection of several worlds: theoretical econometrics, macroeconomics, financial markets, and risk management. Econometrics, the discipline at the heart of his work, consists of applying statistical methods to the analysis of economic phenomena. It does not merely describe data; it seeks to identify relationships, test hypotheses, and build models capable of accounting for how economic and financial variables evolve over time. In Engle’s case, this ambition focused on a variable that has become central to contemporary finance: volatility. Volatility was, of course, known before Engle. In Markowitz’s work, it appears as a measure of risk in portfolio theory. In Black–Scholes, it becomes the key parameter in option pricing. In these frameworks, however, it is often treated as a relatively stable quantity, or at least as a value that can be estimated over a given period. Yet observations of financial time series show something quite different. Volatility changes. It contracts, expands, and sometimes explodes. It appears to follow a dynamic of its own. This idea is essential. In a classical model, one may assume that an asset’s returns are random but that their variance remains constant. Such an assumption greatly simplifies calculations and makes it possible to work with a stable distribution of returns. But it is empirically fragile. Markets move through very different regimes. A stock, currency, interest rate, or equity index does not fluctuate with the same intensity in normal times, during a financial crisis, following a central-bank announcement, or in response to a geopolitical shock. Risk is therefore present not only in price levels, but also in the instability of instability itself. Engle made it possible to formalize this second layer of uncertainty. In his landmark 1982 paper, he introduced ARCH models—Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity. The term may sound technical, but the idea is intuitive. “Heteroskedasticity” means that variance is not constant. “Conditional” means that the expected variance at a given date depends on the information available from the preceding period. “Autoregressive” means that this variance depends on its own past values, or more precisely on past shocks observed in the series. In other words, in an ARCH model, tomorrow’s uncertainty depends on the magnitude of yesterday’s errors or surprises. If markets have recently experienced large movements, the model predicts higher volatility in the immediate future. If recent movements have been small, it predicts lower volatility. This logic corresponds remarkably well to market experience: after a shock, prices do not immediately return to a calm regime. Investors reassess their positions, orders multiply, hedges are adjusted, margin requirements change, and expectations diverge. The initial shock gives rise to a prolonged period of turbulence. Engle’s contribution can be summarized by a simple equation. If an asset’s return is represented as a random innovation whose variance changes over time, then its conditional variance may depend on past shocks. In a basic ARCH model, the conditional variance at time t can be expressed as a constant plus a term involving the square of the error observed in the previous period. The squared error plays a central role: it measures the magnitude of the shock regardless of its sign. A large rise and
FAYAMA T., KARAMBIRI S., ADIOLA B. (eds.), Perspectives from the Humanities and Social Sciences on Global Changes, L’Harmattan, 2026, 458 pages.
The authors examine the economic and social developments taking place across the 54 countries of the African continent. They observe that these developments are becoming increasingly uneven. Population growth is among the highest in the world: Africa’s population is expected to increase from 1.5 to 2.5 billion inhabitants between 2025 and 2050; at the global level, one in three young people will then be African. Although economic growth remains robust (an average of 4% in 2025), significant differences can be observed from one region to another. Growth appears to be more sustainable in East and West Africa than in North and Southern Africa. The average level of public debt remains moderate (around 60% of GDP), but varies considerably from one country to another. China, Turkey and the Gulf countries are gradually replacing Western countries as major creditors, while international aid (from the IMF, World Bank, etc.) tends to decline. The authors also observe that Africa is facing global crises—including pandemics, financial crises and energy crises—while also being affected by specific structural vulnerabilities, such as its overexposure to global warming, erratic fluctuations in commodity prices, various epidemics and ethnic conflicts. The book is divided into three parts. The first focuses on the challenges facing agriculture, which is confronted with multiple difficulties arising from global warming, environmental issues, fluctuations in international markets, lack of financing, and the impact of deforestation on flora and fauna. The authors deplore the insufficient involvement of public authorities and the lack of ethical standards among certain economic actors. In the second part, the authors examine food and health security. They highlight the progress that has been made, particularly through the efforts of international organizations. They call on governments to make greater use of local authorities and to delegate more responsibilities to them. The third part addresses the development of the digital economy in economic activities and education and training. The growing influence of social networks and disinformation on African youth is a source of concern for sociologists, who recommend a profound reform of teaching methods in African educational institutions. The 28 authors are African academics and researchers, engineers, and senior civil servants. Jean Jacques Pluchart
Nicolas HAZARD, je ne suis pas un algoritme !, Editions Flammarion, Février 2026, 182 pages
The Turgot Prize was awarded in 2021 to Aurélie Jean for her book Les algorithmes font-ils la loi ? (Do Algorithms Make the Law?). In his book Je ne suis pas un algorithme (I Am Not an Algorithm), Nicolas Hazard offers a fresh perspective, providing what he sees as a clear-eyed diagnosis of our times and, above all, an invitation to take action. We live in a world of dependence and alienation, in which we believe we are exercising our freedom when in fact we are merely responding to the prompts and solicitations of a system that is beyond our control. In the age of social media, where the individual takes centre stage, where growth drives our economic system, and where technology occupies a dominant position, we retreat into what reassures us most and act in pursuit of immediate results, while remaining deeply dissatisfied and having lost sight of the meaning of our lives in favour of an endless pursuit of “more.” Fortunately, we are much more than algorithms make us believe. Technology is merely a set of tools. It is up to us to decide what place we want to give it and to set appropriate limits. We therefore need to regain control of our lives and our minds. The freedom to make our own choices is often only an illusion, because there is frequently an algorithm influencing us. Our true freedom does not lie in being able to do everything we desire, but in learning to exercise self-restraint and select the options that will make us happy in the long term. This book is a wake-up call—a call to stop submitting to a digital diktat—so that everyone can reconnect with their own uniqueness, take responsibility for their choices, and regain control over what makes us profoundly human. Nicolas Hazard offers several practical recommendations: take a mini digital detox and spend some time away from your phone; stop using social media for 48 hours; write for fifteen minutes about a value that defines you; read an article, watch a video or listen to a podcast presenting an opposing viewpoint and reformulate its ideas with empathy; keep a “meaning journal” and record an activity or encounter that seemed meaningful to you; carry out one concrete altruistic act every day, as this can increase your self-esteem; and devote at least one hour a week to a project or cause that is important to you. In short, let us take action to reclaim the meaning of our lives. Nicolas Hazard, a graduate of Sciences Po and HEC, is an entrepreneur and essayist. He is also a Special Adviser to the European Commission on social innovation and the founder of INCO, a group that develops responsible investment solutions, supports entrepreneurs, and trains young people for the jobs of the future. Book review written by Michel Gabet
Jean BARRERE, Economie du numérique – Pouvoir, plateformes et souveraineté à l’ère de l’IA , Dunod , septembre 2026, 198 pages.
“Nothing lasts; life is nothing but change.” This is a substantial reference work that requires a methodical approach to fully grasp its contents. Jean Barrère highlights imbalances that have changed everything! Even the analytical tools of political economy now belong to a world where products, markets, and boundaries have fundamentally shifted in nature. The gap is widening, the author notes, driven by technologies governed by a hyper-powerful mechanism in which growth begets growth—a virtuous, self-reinforcing spiral. We are worlds away from the classical law of diminishing returns. The book dissects this unique phenomenon of rent reinforcement across three sections and ten chapters, shedding light on the concepts, their foundations, measurement methods, temporal metrics, and associated risks. The author outlines the exponential dynamics inherent to the digital economy—characterized by its structure, regime shifts, and capacity for market lock-in. Notably, this exponential trajectory requires a different financing model than a linear one. He reminds us that the battle for digital sovereignty is not primarily fought at the level of visible applications. Instead, the infrastructure should be viewed as a stack of bottlenecks comprising various constituent layers. Generative AI is spreading at breakneck speed, and the capital being mobilized is surging furiously. Yet, power within this market structure remains heavily concentrated, despite any decline in token value. “Superstar firms” already command a massive installed base. The real issue at stake is not the disappearance of work, but rather the pace at which new tasks are created and how productivity gains are shared. Admittedly, governance technology is advancing more rapidly than the legal frameworks intended to regulate it. However, given the pace at which the industrial policy shaping the digital economic landscape is evolving, only a few hyperscalers will remain, exercising absolute control over the sector’s infrastructure. Among its other merits, this book appears to be particularly timely! Jean Barrere is a strategy and artificial intelligence consulting partner at the firm Accurency and a lecturer in the economics of the digital sector at the University of Paris-Panthéon-Assas. Book review by Freddi Godet des Marais – Club Turgot 2026