France is undergoing a major recession on all fronts, according to Michel Godet. And it is pointless to blame globalisation, European construction or technological change. The demographic watershed of 2006, when the retirement-pension system will explode, will reveal decades of wasteful mismanagement. For how, he asks, can hope remain if there are no human beings?
Such is the warning the author launches in an unprecedented vision of the future. He rejects the false dilemma of the State versus the Market, upsets myths and obstacles (on issues such as Europe’s common agricultural programme, genetically-modified crops, the minimum wage, the 35-hour week, insecurity and the new economy), and doesn’t hesitate to smash statistical and numerical taboos. It is the human factor — and thus the family — that acts as his lodestone on his journey into the heart of France’s malaise. International trade, the ebb and flow of migration, the environment, decentralisation, education: how can sustainable development be assured within a truly participatory democracy? This iconoclastic, inflamed indictment is above all a voluntarist’s message of lucidity and hope.

Michel Godet holds the chair of futurology at CNAM and is the author of fourteen books, including Emploi, le grand mensonge. He is regularly consulted by government authorities, businesses and the media.