In an incisive essay with a deliberately provocative title, Serge Eric Menye questions the destiny of the African continent: Will Africa be the catastrophe of the 21st century? The book, short in volume but dense in its purpose, seeks to break a narrative that has dominated media and institutional discourse for more than fifteen years. We remember, in fact, the enthusiasm aroused in the early 2010s by a study by the consulting firm McKinsey, by the forecasts of the African Development Bank, and by an often fiercely optimistic economic press: this continent was then presented as the “next Eldorado”, the future Asian relay of global growth. However, Menye intends to demonstrate that this perspective is illusory. His diagnosis is clear: far from being the radiant future that was announced, Africa has become bogged down in a vicious cycle of poverty, poor governance, and conflict. Far from benefiting from decades of global growth and the massive decline in poverty observed elsewhere, the African continent has experienced a worsening of its difficulties. The author, however, does not limit himself to making this grim observation. By adopting a three-part structure, identifying the causes of endemic poverty, designating responsibilities, highlighting strengths and prospects, he proposes a dialectical reading: after the presentation of defects and failures, come the immense resources and positive examples that allow us to believe that another path remains possible. The first part of the book meticulously describes the obstacles that explain the rooting of poverty. Africa, explains Menye, has missed all the “trains” of global growth over the last fifty years: the globalization of trade, the digital revolution, the digitization of economies. While Asia has been able to take advantage of these dynamics to become a major player, Africa has remained on the sidelines. Its economies remain largely archaic, focused on the export of raw materials, unable to generate added value and create massive jobs. The case of Nigeria is revealing: the continent’s leading oil producer, it still imports 90% of its gasoline needs, due to a lack of refining infrastructure.This economic structure explains the persistent weakness of growth, too modest to absorb the demographic pressure. The African population, estimated at 1.5 billion today, is expected to reach 4.5 billion in 2100. This demographic shock dilutes all efforts: every investment in education, every progress in health, is neutralized by the constant increase in the number of potential beneficiaries.The figures put forward by the author are striking. In 1960, 10% of the world’s poor lived in Africa. In 2000, the proportion reached 60%. And according to projections, by 2030, 90% of people living in extreme poverty will be African. This historic reversal illustrates the continent’s failure to benefit from the global dynamics that have, on the whole, massively reduced poverty elsewhere.Added to this is a dramatic illiteracy, which still affects more than half of the population. Without education, no economic modernization is possible. The lack of infrastructure, roads, electricity, hospitals, schools, slows down any industrialization. The crushing debt is another burden. The sums spent on repayment deprive states of the means necessary to finance education, health, or critical infrastructure. Chronic indebtedness thus locks many African countries into a vicious circle: without investment, growth remains weak, and without growth, debt cannot be absorbed. To these structural handicaps is added the scourge of armed conflicts. For territories, resources, or identity rivalries, wars erupt with disconcerting regularity. These clashes leave economies bled dry, destroy scarce infrastructure, cause massive population displacements, and exacerbate food crises. The author cites a frightening figure: since 1990, these conflicts have cost the continent about 300 billion dollars. However, no one can build economic activity without the indispensable confidence provided by security and civil peace. Endemic corruption completes this picture. It affects all spheres of society and costs about 25% of the wealth produced each year. In such contexts, foreign investment is scarce, entrepreneurship is withering and the informal economy is proliferating. This informal sector, which is the majority, is a real poverty trap: low wages, lack of social protection, non-existent taxation, illegal or dangerous activities for health. It is on this soil that mafias, arms and drug trafficking, counterfeit medicines (responsible for nearly half a million deaths each year according to the UN), and the financing of terrorism thrive.The political situation is hardly more reassuring. In many countries, regimes are authoritarian, institutions are weak, and elites are predatory. Power, often monopolized by dynasties, is not based on merit or competence. Corruption, cronyism, and massive embezzlement of public money widen the gap between leaders and populations. Some exceptions exist, however: Botswana, Ghana, Senegal, Namibia, Somaliland, and Rwanda have each, in their own way, succeeded in establishing a more stable and democratic governance. But these examples remain in the minority and their effects, although real, are still limited on the continent. II. Responsibilities for the African disaster In the second part, Serge Eric Menye lists those responsible for this situation. He goes beyond the simplistic explanations that attribute all of Africa’s difficulties to colonization or slavery. Certainly, these phenomena have deeply marked the continent, but they are not enough to explain the current inability to develop. The real difference, he insists, lies in governance.The generation gap is huge between a young population, the youngest in the world with a median age of less than twenty years, and older leaders, often in power for decades. The latter conceive of power as a “jackpot”, an opportunity for unlimited personal enrichment. The misappropriations and personal fortunes of the leaders, invested in luxury goods abroad, illustrate this drift. Between 2000 and 2015, no less than 836 billion dollars left Africa illegally, more than the total stock of external debt in 2018 (770 billion). But the African elites are not the only ones responsible. External powers, including France, the United States, Russia, Turkey and China, as well as international institutions, play a role deemed “toxic”. Their interventions are not neutral. They sometimes fuel conflicts, sometimes support corrupt regimes, and exploit resources. Moreover, international aid, often praised,
Felix TORRES, Du berceau au tombeau. Une histoire critique de l’Etat-Providence, Eds de l’Eclaireur, 2025, 192 pages.
The author engages in a critical analysis of the French social protection system, based on the welfare state model inherited from Beveridge’s “3 U”. He draws up a genealogy of the notions – both familiar and unknown – of social protection, social security, social state, welfare state, national solidarity, universal minimum income, “inactivity trap” … He analyzes the drifts of the system’s financing and taxation methods, which he compares to the mechanisms implemented in other major democracies. He recalls the successive alarms launched, since the 1970s, by politicians, such as Georges Pompidou and Jacques Chaban Delmas, by historians, such as Pierre Rosanvallon, or by jurists, such as Pierre Laroque. He observes the many attempts – sometimes utopian and often in vain – to “redefine solidarity”, “rethink rights”, “restore duties”, “improve redistribution”, “recover the untraceable budget balance” … He shows the complexity of legal constructions, fiscal adjustments, financial arrangements … to “fill the hole of the Secu”. He reveals that these excesses are both accelerated and inevitable, due to the political instability of the country and the “French taboo of capitalization”. He ironizes the typically French sense of the ideological controversy around the notions of social charges and contributions, insurance and levies, pensions and retirement… He welcomes the zeal of the technocrats who ensure the governance of the State-funded parity, in the absence of structural reforms.The author recommends, following Erell Thevenon, to adopt a model of “State-Providence” located between the “universal and the individual”. The State refocuses on its “core mission” on a “solidarity base”. Private actors are guaranteed by contract against health and occupational risks, depending on their personal life choices. In any case, it seems that the rebalancing of the French system requires “more work” and “less aid”, as well as a reduction of “real inequalities” but also “undue advantages”.Felix Torres (ENS, associate Professor of history, doctor of anthropology) is the author of numerous books on institutions and companies, where he demonstrates a vast economic and social culture and a rare mastery of historical and anthropological approaches. Jean-Jacques Pluchart
The GDP in question
On September 12, Fitch downgraded France’s sovereign debt from AA- (high quality) to A+ (upper average quality). In its analysis, the agency uses GDP as a central indicator to assess the sustainability of public finances, in particular through the debt/GDP ratio. Fitch points out that French public debt is expected to rise from 113.2% of GDP in 2024 to 121% in 2027, with no clear prospect of stabilization. Fitch considers it unlikely that France will bring its public deficit below 3% of GDP by 2029, while the government was aiming for this objective to comply with European rules. The deficit is expected to be 5.4% of GDP in 2025, and should remain above 5% in 2026 and 2027. In this context, the agency believes that France has less room for maneuver in the face of possible economic shocks. According to the latest INSEE estimates, the country’s GDP will grow by 0.8% in 2025 instead of the 0.6% initially forecast, due to better dynamics in agriculture, tourism, the real estate market, and aeronautics. This increase, although positive, is far from expected to offset the weight of the debt. In its latest economic bulletin published on September 25, the ECB presents an overview of the macroeconomic projections of inflation and GDP in the Eurozone, in order to justify its monetary policy. Inflation is expected to be 2.1% in 2025, 1.7% in 2026, and 1.9% in 2027. Growth, meanwhile, is expected to be 1.2% in 2025, 1% in 2026, and 1.3% in 2027. In its statement, “the Governing Council considers it essential to strengthen, without delay, the eurozone and its economy in the current geopolitical environment. Fiscal and structural policies should improve the productivity, competitiveness and resilience of the economy… It is up to governments to prioritize structural reforms and strategic investments that promote growth while ensuring the sustainability of public finances.”The roadmap is therefore clear: GDP must be supported However, is the calculation of GDP still relevant and up-to-date to measure the wealth created by a country? Should its formula evolve as suggested by some economists and politicians? And especially in terms of climate change? GDP is already 80 years old It was at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944 that GDP was adopted as a standard indicator to measure the economic activity of countries, in particular to facilitate international comparisons and post-war reconstruction. It will thus be gradually adopted by the whole world and international organizations, such as the UN, the IMF or the World Bank. In France, it was applied from 1949. Over the years, GDP gradually replaced GNP (Gross National Product) as the main indicator, because it measures production in a territory, regardless of the nationality of the economic actors. In the 70s and 80s, GDP began to include previously neglected sectors such as services. Indeed, developed countries are moving from an industrial economy to a service economy, which changes the structure of GDP The limits of GDP In 2009, the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi report or the “Report on the measurement of economic performance and social progress” was commissioned by Nicolas Sarkozy. Questioning the limits of the calculation of the indicator, this report proposes to supplement the GDP with indicators of well-being, sustainability and inequalities. Indeed, the report points out that GDP: – ignores well-being: it does not measure happiness, health, education, or the quality of the environment;– neglects inequalities: an increase in GDP can hide an increase in income gaps. It ignores sustainability: It does not take into account the degradation of natural capital (resources, climate);– does not value unpaid work, such as volunteering or domestic work.Recently, the ECB also warned its member states that climate change could cut European GDP by 5% by 2030. In France, INSEE proposed in 2024 a complementary indicator to GDP, the “adjusted net domestic product” (Pina): this indicator makes it possible to take climate change into account by netting the creation of value from the effects of future damage and decarbonization costs. Although developments are being studied and considered, GDP is still the reference for a large number of institutions as a management tool; but other dimensions of analysis will have to be added in order to have a more global vision in a context of global warming. Sophie Friot Member of the Turgot Club
Bertrand ALLIOT, Comprendre l’incroyable écologie ». Editeur Salvator, 2025, 180 pages.
The author offers his vision on the genesis, influence, and evolution of this current of thought in the political and economic sphere of a part of the world, in particular Europe. If environmental awareness has always been correlated to mankind in various forms, it experienced a boom with the beginning of industrialization and the emergence of the first theses on the need to regulate the world population. The Environment becomes, over the course of events, the matrix of more identity-based and more radical currents. This is how, at the end of the 19th century, the word “ecology” was born, to designate the “scientific discipline which studies the natural environments as well as the relations and interactions between the living beings and these environments”. Very quickly, “ecology” deviates from this definition and their representatives, ecologists, to become a messianic movement based on a quasi-religious rhetoric. The new “ecology” is based on the concept of “imminent global systemic crisis”, fueling its rationality and justification on materials provided by the news: acid rain, nuclear risks, overpopulation, the ozone layer, greenhouse gas emissions related to human activities, energy transition… Each theme is the subject of active advertising via broadcasting and popularization relays: NGOs, Conferences/Debates, ad-hoc Commissions, media, experts of all kinds, reports/theses. Funding is legion through international organizations, governments, contributions, bequests/donations… It is worth noting the remarkable plasticity of the approach: Each new theme drives out the previous one, as was the case with acid rain, overpopulation, the ozone layer, nuclear power… Global warming is the new battlefield for environmentalists, fueled by a number of reports, including those of the IPCC. The European Union is among the good students on its territory but is less concerned about the possible environmental damage of its international suppliers, the global impact study being mainly reserved for its own nationals. This virtuous approach of the European Union is not, for the moment, imitated by its direct competitors (United States, China, India, Brazil…) less hampered by the norms and beneficiaries of our environmental challenges which translates, for the European Union, into an impoverishment, a “soft” decline, a deindustrialization, a loss of sovereignty, and an over-indebtedness for some. Can this asymmetric competitiveness gap, to some extent, explain the decline of Europe and its erasure in this new world? The author’s final optimism is based on an awareness of the European Union’s economic, social, and political issues, but also on the gradual disappearance of ecology as a dominant thought by its inability to anticipate and solve problems. Bertrand ALLIOT, actor of the environmental movement. Former ecologist and columnist. Published “Une histoire naturelle de l’homme” (A Natural History of Man). Ed. de l’Artilleur in 2020. Hubert Alcaraz
Michael LAINE, L’ère de la post- vérité Comment les algorithmes transforment notre rapport à la réalité, Editions La Découverte 2025.
A big hat tip to the author of this book, which addresses the theme of the impact of digital transformation from a very global perspective, combining technology (including artificial intelligence), social networks, sociology, psychology, and philosophy. The book, very powerful in terms of brain stimulation, requires a consequent effort to measure all the richness and to provide the reader with keys to master a relationship with “reality”. In fact, new technologies largely exploit the human brain’s propensity to cling to preconceived ideas. They strive to fulfill ever-increasing desires fueled by virtual messages carried by multiple digital niches. The damage caused by poorly or insufficiently regulated tools is considerable, with the risk of losing critical thinking, whether in the business world or in personal life. The providers of “cyber information” – for example, AI – know very well how to exploit the mechanisms of information absorption by individuals. These mechanisms include a large part of positive or negative emotions, such as fears. Very often, consumers of biased and targeted information to generate, for example, buying behaviors, lose their ability to discern. A very significant risk is linked to the rigidification of thought polluted by fake news of all kinds, which shuts down certain parts of the brain and can lead to inappropriate decisions. Advertising and Artificial Intelligence make extensive use of the psychological levers mentioned above. The author underlines the absolute urgency of strengthening global governance in the face of the risks of “cyber capitalist” societies. This is a very powerful book that warns of considerable economic, societal, and human risks. Denis Molho
Gerard BLANDIN, Le Grand Livre des taux d’intérêt, Arnaud Franel Editions, 328 pages.
The Grand Livre des taux d’intérêt (The Great Book of Interest Rates) is an encyclopedia of finance that not only covers rates – the “most important figures in the modern world” – but also all instruments, institutions, procedures, events… of modern finance. The book includes both alphabetical entries by concepts and acronyms, as well as focus sections (especially historical) and quotes from famous financiers, references to the sources consulted, and references to related concepts. It is solidly structured and is written in a clear and precise style. It demonstrates that the traditional book format, when well constructed, is more didactic and practical than online consultation of a search engine, even one enriched by AI. It is also an opportunity to organize useful financial literacy quizzes. Gérard Blandin’s book summarizes in only 328 pages the sum of knowledge that all practitioners, teachers, and students in finance must fully master, and that savers and financial investors must at least partially know. The reader of the Grand Livre will discover several hundred abbreviations and acronyms, regulatory texts, and names of famous financiers and politicians, who are or have been essential in the functioning of monetary, financial, and accounting systems. The Grand Livre is not only practical; it attests to the complexity of contemporary finance and delivers a subliminal message about the unparalleled creativity of financiers, the speed of change in finance, and the importance of its economic and social utility.A graduate of Sciences Po Paris, Gérard Blandin has over thirty years of experience in the field of investments. He has led the editorial teams of several financial weekly publications and is the author of about fifteen works on the stock market, real estate, collective management, and market finance. Jean-Jacques Pluchart
Alain GRANDJEAN, Claude HENRY, Jean JOUZEL, Les orphelins de la planète, Eds Grasset, 186 pages.
The authors respond to the main questions raised for more than ten years by the impacts of global warming and by energy and ecological transitions. They recall the alarms launched since 1990 by the IPCC and other official bodies, as well as the ambitions (often disappointed) displayed in the 29 Conferences of the Parties (COP) organized since 1995. They stress the importance of the COP 21 held in Paris in 2015, which set the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. The authors reveal that the IPCC reports have been the target of a real climategate, orchestrated by the energy companies, which have tried to discredit the IPCC’s data, processing, and conclusions through complacent studies. They also denounce the banks that continue to finance projects that harm the environment. They point out that the multiple consequences (especially on human health) of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are better documented and that a warming of 3°C, or even 4°C, would be catastrophic for the planet and humanity. They warn of the severity and simultaneity of the latest natural disasters (drought, floods, etc.). The authors are optimistic, however: they identify the devices to be implemented in order to achieve the objectives set by the COP: new instruments of “green finance”, alternative systems of heating, transportation and production, ecological materials… They show the progress of agroecology to preserve the soil and absorb GHGs, as well as the emergence of geoengineering that extracts carbon monoxide from the atmosphere. They hold up European countries as examples for the least energy-efficient nation-states, such as China and the United States. Alain GRANDJEAN is the co-founder of the firm Carbon 4. Claude HENRY is an honorary professor at the Ecole Polytechnique and the University of Colombia. Jean JOUZEL was a member of the IPCC. Jean-Jacques Pluchart
Edouard DOLLEY- Vers une finance durable – Arnaud Franel Editions – 314 pages
The book is interesting in more ways than one: educational, practical, inspiring. You can’t do sustainable finance without doing finance first! This book introduces the main concepts of corporate and market finance, then explains how these concepts are relevant to sustainable finance. Each chapter focuses on a financial concept: wealth, interest rates, returns, balance sheets, asset portfolios, arbitrage, derivatives, and even crypto-assets! This book thus provides a bridge between “traditional” finance and sustainable finance. That covers the educational aspect. It is practical thanks to its original format. In each chapter, the concepts are explained by teachers and practitioners: CFOs, central bankers, commercial bankers, investment bankers, managers, trading room managers, appraisers, accountants, auditors, business leaders, and more. We learn that concepts such as IRR, required rate of return, risk-free rate, company buyouts, arbitrage, CAPM, options and derivatives, and extra-financial valuation are applicable to the models and functioning of sustainable finance. The book is inspiring because it is not a pro domo plea for sustainable finance. On the contrary, the choice of interviewees leads us to question the current systemic limitations: difficulties in determining the rate of return on an ESG project and calculating environmental value, the intrinsic value of carbon, questions about regulations and SRI evaluators, etc. Each chapter includes a conclusion in a few points that summarizes the previous discussion and raises questions, an inspiring format! Natural and social capital cannot be reduced to numbers, but numbers are essential and it is crucial to collect reliable data. And “classic” financial concepts provide a solid foundation that can be adapted to the analysis of broader issues, particularly sustainability. The author rightly asserts that the green and sustainable transition will require a return of trust, governance, and value, and the current difficulties are not overlooked. Regarding trust, E. DOLLEY affirms the need to develop blockchains. Given their energy consumption, this point seems counterintuitive, but the arguments put forward are strong. The traceability of funds invested in projects, the reliability of upstream data that is so difficult to obtain that the OMNIBUS Directive has limited the obligations to obtain it, and “certified” renewable energy sources would justify and satisfy the information needs of economic agents. This book does not develop ready-made solutions, but it provides a kind of serious and accessible compendium. Thus, the transition would be driven by a “bottom-up” approach, as the top-down approach has, according to the author, reached its well-defined limits. Dominique Chesneau
Mathilde VIENNOT, La planification écologique, La découverte (repères), 126 pages.
The French planning of the Glorious Thirty, initiated by Jean Monnet, has given way to a new form of more global and sustainable planning: “ecological planning”, which focuses on the objectives to be achieved and the resources to be implemented in order to ensure energy, ecological, economic and social transitions, by 2030 and 2050. The author shows the diversity of devices to be mobilized, conventions, laws, decrees and standards to be defined in order to establish a “frugal, carbon-free, circular and sustainable economy”. The ecological, economic, and social issues are intertwined and most of the constraints – especially sectoral and territorial – often provoke contradictory reactions from the many social actors involved. This is why the author believes that the transition involves a “democratic renewal”, especially in France. Mathilde Viennot compares the different modes of planning throughout history: Soviet-style authoritarian, French-style indicative, incentive-based in the context of the New Deal, etc. She analyzes the scope and especially the limits of the conventional parameters that underlie economic projections (discount rate, GDP, debt, etc.). She highlights the difficulty of arbitrating between market regulation and the regulation of production and consumption. She believes that ecological planning is based primarily on more sobriety in the ways of housing, moving, and feeding. She compares the different estimates of the necessary over-investments (in 360 and 416 billion euros per year in Europe by 2030) and analyzes the necessary financial arrangements, then deduces that the Union and the European States will have to be at the same time “treasurers, compensators, architects, co-investors, and collectors”.The author demonstrates an exceptional sense of analysis and synthesis on one of the most complex and essential contemporary issues. Mathilde Viennot (ENS, PhD in Economics from EHESS) is a member of France Stratégie. Jean-Jacques Pluchart
Geoffrey BERTRAND, La Diplomatie Disruptive. Redéfinir les règles du Jeu International, eds GB, 2025, 186 pages.
The book is in the form of a lecture on diplomatic negotiation aimed at overcoming the conventional approaches in use in all embassies. The author apparently delivers his (overly) rich experience of diplomacy in order to “decode the paradigms” that underlie international relations, to deduce that the “disruptive diplomacy” initiated by Donald Trump constitutes an irreversible “diplomatic revolution”. The latter is based on “the Art of Calculated Unpredictability”, which exploits uncertainty as a strategic lever, and “orchestrates new unexpected diplomatic pivots”. The approach, accompanied by direct language and a sometimes brutal style, aims to “reorient the negotiation” by breaking its formal framework and to give priority to efficiency over the maintenance of established positions and respect for principles. It favors bilateral relations over multilateral exchanges, inter-state dialogues over international forums. It also involves “the conquest of the information space” (including messages in the press and social networks, before, during, and after the diplomatic agenda. However, it must be applied “intelligently” and must be adapted to the cultural context of each negotiation, in order to avoid the authors being discredited. The author proposes that France adopt the “Trumpian strategy” without delay in order to preserve its diplomatic heritage and maintain its influence in the world. This advice is all the more risky as the long-term benefits of the “Trumpian method” have not yet been demonstrated, which has already resulted in the reform of the “Global South” bloc of countries. The legendary caution of diplomats invites us to seek a compromise between the conventional protocol and the new disruptive method.Geoffrey Bertrand is apparently a pseudonym that masks the identity of a diplomat or consultant, a journalist or a trainer in geopolitics and/or negotiation techniques… unless it covers a clever simulation designed by an AI algorithm that would have passed the Turing test. Jean-Jacques Pluchart