Reconciling “end of the world and end of the month”? In the aftermath of the “yellow vests” crisis, France Strategy took this refrain seriously, which sums up the difficulty of steering the ecological transition, while making it socially and democratically acceptable. At the end of 2019, the foresight institution attached to Matignon took up this thorny question on its own and sought to paint the portrait of a body capable of putting the transition to music and bringing together the requirements of the long term and the imperatives of the day. The result of his work, a 250-page report published on Sunday May 8, takes on a singular importance, in the light of recent statements by Emmanuel Macron, ensuring that ecological planning is a priority for his second term.
In its report, France Strategy recommends a profound and ambitious reorganization of the machinery of the State, with the creation of a new administration, backed by the services of the Prime Minister. This would be devoted to planning the transition, to making all public policies consistent with it, and to leading the public debate to identify the elements of consensus or, on the contrary, of discord. A crucial aspect to guarantee the character “socially and democratically sustainable” measures taken, in the words of Hélène Garner, one of the coordinators of the report.
For two years, the rapporteurs interviewed many qualified personalities and collected hundreds of contributions from economists, political scientists and sociologists, historians, philosophers, lawyers, elected officials, social partners, etc. “This work started from a strong ideasays Johanna Barasz, coordinator of the report. Although faced with vital challenges such as climate change, the collapse of biodiversity, the worsening of pollution or even the increase in inequalities, the State is not equipped to respond coherently to these challenges. , while taking into account the socio-economic balances of the present. » And this, all the less so as public action is faced with increasingly significant mistrust.
“A new benchmark”
“We can no longer govern as beforespecifies Hélène Garner, another coordinator of the report. We have tried to explore the fabric of public policies to understand why we are unable to respond to long-term issues, to identify all the obstacles to taking sustainability issues into account. We tried to imagine what could be a new frame of reference to orchestrate public policies. »
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