Qare eleven priorities still priorities? In any case, it is a thick shopping list that was detailed at length, this Tuesday, October 12, the President of the Republic by unveiling his France 2030 plan. Nothing has been forgotten, or almost, from nuclear to the seabed through culture. This form of bis budget has also been the subject of serious trade-offs between the multiple requests from the ministries. We are assured that everyone has been consulted, and we want to believe it.
But the conductor remained at the Elysée, the only thinking mind capable of projecting us into the next decade and setting the course. We almost forget that, on Thursday, September 3, 2020, the President of the Republic resuscitated the General High Commission for Planning, by appointing François Bayrou at its head, with the task of“Enlighten the choices of public authorities with regard to demographic, economic, social, environmental, health, technological and cultural issues”.
Since then, nothing. The commissioner did publish a report on demographics in May and another on agriculture in July. But on the three major challenges of the France 2030 plan, namely France’s sovereignty, energy transition and public health, its contributions can be summed up in an opening note of 17 pages, produced in December 2020 on vital products and French independence and supposed to open the debate. It was quickly closed yesterday in front of a François Bayrou in the front row, who attended the Elysian performance as a spectator.
A country eaten away by bitterness
Finally, the return of “The ardent obligation of the Plan” of General de Gaulle was only a flash in the pan. It adds nothing more to the very good reports of France Stratégie, which was itself the umpteenth transformation of the Planning Commission. It’s a shame, because it’s not a new content producer that France needs. With France Strategy, the Economic Analysis Council, the meticulous work of the Senate and the National Assembly and the reports commissioned by the ministries or the Elysee, it is abundantly supplied.
What it lacks is a long-term vision supported by alternative development scenarios, accompanied by a reflection on the means of action. In other words, to propose different paths and a method to politicians and to the nation. In a country plagued by bitterness and depression, in the grip of a “Hectic immobility”, according to the formula of the researcher Etienne Klein, and who makes progress a bad word, it is urgent to show possible futures rather than to extend curves in an eternal and vain quest for lost grandeur.