Nicolas Tenzer’s latest book delivers a useful lesson in international diplomacy after the upheavals caused by the wars in Ukraine and Israel, as well as by the MAGA movement in the United States. These phenomena have disrupted the international order established at the end of the Second World War and have made relations between the blocs more unlikely. The author strives to map nation-states according to their balance of power. He logically ranks the United States and China among the global powers, but he considers them to be losing momentum. He describes Russia and the former colonizing countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Italy as trans-regional powers (he does not clearly state the status of Germany and Japan). He estimates that a dozen states, such as Turkey (whose politics are studied at length), Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, and South Africa, have an intermediate power status. Other states do not have sufficient critical mass to influence other states, such as the Baltic countries and the countries of Eastern Europe, but the author believes that they could play an increasingly decisive role in the future in the concert of nations.Nicolas Tenzer holds up Ukraine as an example of a “heroic state” defending democratic principles, and is outraged by the falsehoods uttered against it by Russia. He recognizes that its aggression has helped to unite most of the member countries of the European Union. He believes that a Ukrainian victory should help to pacify international relations, restore democratic values, and “dismantle the mental apparatus” of Russia based on falsehoods. He calls for the construction of a new model of relations based no longer on force but on democratic values of responsibility and truth.The book reflects the universality of the author’s knowledge and the depth of his analyses. It is served by a creative and educational style. Reading it will contribute to a better understanding of the new balance between nations. Nicolas Tenzer (Normale sup, Sciences po, ENA) was a teacher at Sciences po and the Paris School of International Affairs. He was a member of the cabinet of the Minister of Economy and Finance (1987-1988), rapporteur at the Court of Auditors (1991-1993), head of department at the General Commissariat of the Plan (1994-2002), and responsible for an interministerial mission on international expertise (2007-2008). He is the founding president of the Center for Study and Reflection for Political Action (CERAP), J-J.Pluchart

The REP’s No. 106 issue raises a seemingly provocative question, but in reality, it is fundamental and complex. It consists of nine articles analyzing the many difficulties faced by businesses and governments – including France – in their project to reindustrialize a “country without factories” after three decades of industrial decline.Reindustrialization involves arbitrating between more or less contradictory objectives relating to the competitiveness of factories, security of supply, environmental protection, energy savings, balance between territories, social equity … Arbitrations must first be subject to lengthy administrative procedures, costly information campaigns and more or less democratic debates. The choice of activities to rehabilitate and territories to reindustrialize differ according to the countries of the European Union. National industrial links are part of an international chain of value creation, which limits the options. “Industrial territories” operations must therefore reconcile the imperatives of equitable land use, preserve agricultural land in the name of “land sobriety”, rehabilitate brownfield sites and supervise polluting and/or carbon-emitting industries (Net Zero Artificialization objective). These operations involve aligning public and private interests and adopting more sustainable financing systems. They must also be part of profitable circular economy systems that are both energy and raw material efficient. As an example, the case of the development of the sustainable and affordable electric car is remarkably studied.The dossier also includes an article – whose resonance is particularly current – entitled “the left and economists”, dealing with the confrontation from 1936 to 1938 between the leaders of the Popular Front and the economists Alfred Sauvy and Robert Marjolin, about the 40-hour week. An article on the coordination of the actions of the countries of the European Union in favor of Ukraine, closes the file.The authors are expert teachers and researchers and journalists (members of the Veblen Institute) mainly specialized in industrial economics. Jean-Jacques Pluchart

“The 20th century was the century of abundance. The 21st will be one of limits.” We frequently discuss energy transition, relocalization and sobriety, but partly as if they were simple options. The author leads us to see that these are no longer options, but realities. This book makes this perfectly clear, and not by hyperbole or by trying to scare the reader. It’s not a doomsday story, nor is it about eternal progress. It simply welcomes the fact that we’ve reached the limits. Scarcity is no longer the exception and is now becoming the norm. Oil is at the heart of his analysis. He reminds us of a little-known fact: Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI). From 100:1 at the beginning of the twentieth century, it now stands at 11:1, a figure that threatens our entire equilibrium. Nothing can be done without abundant, cheap energy. Electricity is not a silver bullet, just a vector. It’s a means of transporting energy. The author also mentions minerals and raw materials. We depend disproportionately on scarce resources, often from unstable countries. We use them for everything: telephones, batteries, infrastructure. But if one link breaks, we have no plan B. Freight transport is under pressure worldwide. It has a very low profit margin. One small thing can paralyze an entire production operation. Even industrial agriculture depends on it: fertilizers, machinery, transport… in reality, nothing is autonomous. It’s a system we’ve built ourselves. Over-specialization, globalization and the cult of efficiency have left us unable to cope when things go wrong. We’ve pursued efficiency and forgotten resilience. Renaud Duterme links this to the economic logic handed down by Ricardo and the rise of neoliberalism. The issue is not just technological; it’s a political vision. In the final section, he is less alarmist, but just as serious. He says we’re going to suffer shortages, and the question is really this: do we want to suffer them or be prepared for them? It’s not a question of stopping everything or going backwards. It’s an invitation to reconsider what we make, why and for whom. Relocate where it really counts. To overcome this system of unlimited growth and recognize that this century will have limits – physical and environmental, as well as social. In other words, this is not a technical manual or a political tract. It’s a clear, honest text. It confronts us with reality. It doesn’t try to scare us; it tries to convince us, by giving us the facts, and it succeeds. It’s a book to read not so much for what you can learn from it, but for what you can prepare yourself for. Because, in the future, it won’t just be a question of technologies, but of choices, compromises and even collective thinking. Renaud Duterme holds a degree in development sciences from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, where he also teaches geography. Attentive to questions of inequality and ecology, he is the author of De quoi l’effondrement est-il le nom? (2016, foreword by Pablo Servigne), Petit manuel pour une géographie de combat (2020) and Nos mythologies écologiques (2021). Florence Anglès

The book raises useful questions about the development of bitcoin, which was designed in 2009 by Satoshe Nakamoto and relaunched in 2025 by the new American presidency. Bitcoin is both a cryptographic asset and an alternative currency under shadow banking. It performs the three functions of an official currency: unit of account, transaction vector, and store of value. The bitcoin system is decentralized and self-managed. It exploits blockchain technology, based on the encapsulation of transactions in blocks whose digital footprint (the hash) in the form of complex probabilistic equations, is verified by mining farms (Proof of Work).The control of the system – which is increasingly used by states, administrations, businesses, and households – now presents strategic challenges for governments, central banks, and commercial banks. Transactions financed by bitcoins are subject to regulation by the Financial Stability Board, the Basel Committee, the Bank for International Settlements, the Financial Action Task Force, at the international level, and the MICA regulation, within the framework of the European Union. Despite this increasingly restrictive framework, since the failure of Facebook’s libra, bitcoin continues to raise questions and concerns among monetary institutions, financial institutions, and the general public. Bitcoin also raises ecological problems, being a consumer of electricity and contributing to global warming.The authors of the book expose the dilemmas faced by governments, some of which (Salvador, Nigeria) have adopted it as an official currency, others (like China) have banned it, and most tolerate its use under certain conditions. The European Central Bank has relegated it to the rank of “pseudo-currency”. It seems that bitcoin is now considered a “safe haven” (the “bitcoin-gold”), a way to circumvent international sanctions (for Russia), an alternative to the dollar (for the BRICS), or “a digital value reserve”.Reading the book requires sustained attention because of its conceptual and technical nature, but it contributes to a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the current international monetary system.Jean-Charles Galli is a teacher-researcher and advisor to start-ups. Alexandre Stachtcenko is a strategy director at Paymium. Jean-Jacques Pluchart

This well-documented book deals with a highly topical issue for the current economic situation in France. Indeed, it offers many quantified solutions to overcome 5 problematic issues: the walls of debt, deindustrialization, standards, welfare, and insecurity.After a diagnosis of the level of France’s deficit, Ms. Verdier-Molinié immediately confronts us with the significant risks of a drift in the deficit and therefore of the debt, which already exceeds 3,300 billion euros. The discrediting of France for the non-control of its deficit could harm its ability to finance this debt and could even lead to the takeover of public finances by the International Monetary Fund as happened in Greece.To find a positive trajectory and save 110 billion euros by 2029, Ms. Verdier Molinié shares a dozen extremely concrete solutions on each of the 5 themes mentioned above.To reduce the debt, immediate common sense measures are centered around the reduction of public spending through their increased efficiency as well as the elimination of duplicates. A reform of unemployment insurance, as well as a new reform of pensions and the health system, are clearly described as priorities.To get out of the deindustrialization that has largely begun, we find a recommendation strongly pushed by companies in recent years on the reduction of production taxes, which weigh nearly 20 billion euros per year, to improve competitiveness, as well as to take advantage of the significant benefit through abundant and cheap electrical and nuclear energy. She also proposes to severely limit environmental standards, which is obviously less of a consensus in the current context of CSR.Ms. Verdier Molinié also draws up a damning assessment of the Standards often resulting from entry into Europe, which constitute a very significant competitive disadvantage compared to some of our American or Chinese competitors in particular. She proposes to make a diagnosis of the administrative burden on companies, knowing that the already existing indices show a doubling of these standards for companies in recent years, and particularly heavy for SMEs. The recommended solutions are quite classic in style: a standard created, a standard deleted, but also to constitute indices for monitoring normative complexity.The subject of the Assistantship, known to all but rarely quantified, is the subject of an interesting analysis (number of hours actually worked, number of strike days, facial gratuity because there is always a payer behind, consumer or taxpayer). She also insists on the rehabilitation of the value of Work (training to be carried out) and takes a firm position on immigration, which can only be granted in exchange for work.The subject of Insecurity is also documented because Ms. Verdier Molinié, rather expected on the economic subject, makes an assessment of its impact. She tries to quantify the cost of riots and the recidivism of offenders, for example. The proposals she makes range from the effective execution of sentences to the construction of prisons and also, in general, to the cessation of social rights for offenders.This book contains many proposals, sometimes consensual, sometimes less so, with a priority given to the economy and therefore to the treatment of the debt wall and public finances. She believes that political and non-ecological measures are necessary to get out of the current situation by 2029.But often in France, it is not because we have a clear vision of the measures to be taken that the human and political context are now united to put them in place. But this book can be a “building block” for the construction of the future. Agnès VERDIER-MOLINIE is Director of the IFRAP Foundation, a THINK Tank that evaluates public policies. Olivier STEPHAN

In the definition formulated by César-Pierre Richelet, author in 1680 of the first French dictionary, agriculture means “the art of cultivating the land”. But the word agriculture is a kind of linguistic laziness and “suffers from the use of the third person singular” as the author points out because agriculture is a composite emanation of social complexities.Meat drying techniques, seed conservation, and the rise of storage contributed to the sedentarization of hunter-gatherers. This sedentarization freed the hands and minds, favoring other forms of production of goods, especially with the birth of crafts. Agriculture has gone from a relationship with the animist world, part of the continuity of life, to a world in which nature and humans have separated. Agriculture and nature become shaped by man. This is the first major transition, the Neolithic mutation.The second transition will appear with the eighteenth century and will take a decisive turn with the discovery of the great oil fields in Texas. The industrial revolution and extractive productivism provided agriculture with new, extremely powerful means of production, agrochemicals, and motorization.This new era, the Anthropocene, with agricultural intensification, indebtedness, soil de-fertilization, atmospheric pollution, and pesticide pollution has led to a collapse of biodiversity. Certainly, this collapse is multifactorial and its constituents are very difficult to isolate from each other. Nevertheless, it is clear that a reduction in pesticide consumption is possible without affecting yield. This reduction in pesticides can only be done with an intensification of the agricultural workforce and plant association rather than monoculture.We must revive symbiosis, this is the author’s proposal: agroecology.Since the recent discovery of the holobiont, we know that the massive use of inputs weakens the microbiota of the earth. This will not only involve new agricultural practices but also a change in our eating habits, first and foremost, our meat consumption. It will also be necessary to restore coherence and networking between territories, rebalance decision-making powers towards more local scales, and finally, reinstate the sharing of water resources.The indispensable restoration of the agricultural community will pass through its politicization. Ecology, initially based on this restoration, has gone astray. It has become a forum for discourse overlooking realities, highly publicized, which contributes to the radicalization of positions. Agroecology must not follow the same path of protest and demand. It must be accompanied by the public authorities. It must convince of this humanistic and ecological transformation, to influence the course of the world but without shaking it.Jacques Tassin is an agronomist and ecologist at CIRAD (Center for International Cooperation in Agronomic Research for Development) and a corresponding member of the French Academy of Agriculture. Ph Alezard