Abstracts Archive
n° 358 - December 2009 - The Future of Seaports The great seaports, places of transit for the most varied of goods, have undergone continual development over recent decades, adapting themselves to growing levels of sea traffic and ever larger ships...Read More(PDF)
n° 357 - November 2009 - Coal's Big Comeback. An Issue at the Centre of Climate Negotiations Next month (December 2009) in Copenhagen an international conference will take place that will be crucial for the future of our planet's climate, since its aim is to follow up the Kyoto agreement and to tackle global warming...Read More(PDF)
n° 356 - October 2009 - Brazil – Future Agricultural Supplier to the Arab World? For more than a decade, particularly since the creation of the G20 in 1999, an economic forum that added 10 emerging countries to the world's most industrialized nations, Brazil has played an ever-expanding role on the international stage...Read More(PDF)
n° 355 - September 2009 - The Share-out of Gains from Growth in France. Gloomy Prospects for Those on Average Salaries France has been in recession for some months now, following the economic crisis that broke in 2008 and the prospects for many employees are not very bright over the coming months or even years...Read More(PDF)
n° 354 - July-August 2009 - The Strategies and Future of Europe's Cities In the view of Jean Haëntjens, who has coordinated this issue's special dossier on European cities for Futuribles, it is accepted today that the current economic crisis calls for another, more eco-responsible model of development and that the organization...Read More(PDF)
n° 353 - June 2009 - Society under Surveillance, an Academic Fear? The rise and ever greater sophistication of information and communications technologies in recent decades offers modern societies some very ambivalent possibilities. These technologies have, for example, provided individuals with unrivalled capacities to contact...Read More(PDF)
n° 352 - May 2009 - The Global Labour Force to 2030. A Summary of Futuribles International's Vigie 2008 Report Each year, as part of its system of mutualized monitoring, the “Futuribles International” Association publishes a report surveying long-term and emerging trends in the strategic environment of enterprises and organizations over the next 10 to 20 years...Read More(PDF)
n° 351 - April 2009 - What future for the Electric Car? The “conventional” car industry is in crisis. This is not a recent phenomenon, but the current economic crisis has taken it to new levels. We may add to this the bad press that fossil fuels are receiving in a context where oil is becoming scarcer and greenhouse gas emissions are being combated...Read More(PDF)
n° 350 - March 2009 - Continental Drift: Asia and Africa. “Chinafrica” (French writers long ago coined the parallel term “Françafrique”) is a term found increasingly in press articles or book titles and has even gained general currency as the title of a website (Chinafrica.com)...Read More(PDF)
n° 349 - February 2009 - The Human Security Response Force: A Different Way of Peacekeeping. Drawing the lessons from the Balkan conflicts it was unable to prevent in the 1990s, the European Union began to (re)define its security and defence doctrine in the very early 2000s... Read More(PDF)
n° 348 - January 2009 - Eating Patterns and Food Security in the Mediterranean. The Current Situation and Future Prospects. The Mediterranean diet has enjoyed a high reputation over many years, both for its nutritional quality and its health benefits. What does it consist in, how has it developed and how is it currently evolving?... Read More(PDF)
n° 347 - December 2008 - Prospects for a European Labour Market. Since its inception, the European Union has advanced on two fronts: the expansion of its geographical space and the widening of the scope of its powers. With 27 member states today, the Union is a success with regard to free trade... Read More(PDF)
n° 346 - November 2008 - Is Carbon Offsetting an Elaborate Charade? Climate Change: the Mirage of Greenhouse Gas Emission Compensation Mechanisms.There is now a massive scientific consensus around global warming and the subject is a major focus of media interest in most industrialized countries... Read More(PDF)
n° 345 - October 2008 - The Future of Marine Renewable Energies. Summary of the Ifremer Futures Study on Marine Renewable Energies to 2030.The challenge posed by climate change and the predicted scarcity of fossil fuels is so great that energy questions are increasingly in the headlines.... Read More(PDF)
n° 344 - September 2008 - Dare to InnovateTwo days of debate on the theme of innovation were organized on 26 and 27 September 2007 at Margaux, near Bordeaux, by Oséo, a public body created to finance and support innovation in French small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and by the Regional Council of Aquitaine. These "Entretiens de Margaux", aspiring to become a "Davos of Innovation", will be held again in 2009... Read More(PDF)
n° 343 - July-August 2008 - Migrations: the European Statistical Challenge In July 2007, the European Union adopted a regulation aimed at harmonizing the European statistics relating to international migration. As Xavier Thierry shows here, the statistical challenge is sizeable, and it has to be confronted as soon as possible: in 7 of the 27 member states (including France)... Read More(PDF)
n° 342 - June 2008 - Second Wind for Galileo. The Relaunch of the European Satellite Location and Navigation Programme No one today denies the importance of satellite location and navigation systems - and their strategic importance in particular. The United States understood this long ago and developed an efficient system, the GPS or Global Positioning System, which is the world leader in the field by some distance. Other powers (Russia, China and Europe) have followed this lead in recent years... Read More(PDF)
n° 341 - May 2008 - Palestine: Overcoming Adverse Water Conditions. In this second article in a series on water-related violence, begun in the Futuribles issue of March 2008, Pierre Blanc examines the Israel/Palestine case. He shows the extent to which, despite a substantial concentration of water in the West Bank, the Palestinian population finds itself in a precarious situation with regard to water... Read More(PDF)
n° 340, April 2008 - A Look at the Treaty of Lisbon ? After two and half years of institutional uncertainties following the rejection of the Draft European Constitution by the French and Dutch electorates in 2005, the 27 member states of the European Union agreed in October 2007 on a so-called "simplified" text: the Treaty of Lisbon or "The Treaty modifying the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty Establishing the European Community"... Read More(PDF)
n° 339, March 2008- The ITER Programme. Successful European Inter-Governmental Cooperation in the Scientific and Technical Fields. At a time when energy questions - be it global warming or the depletion of sources of fossil fuels - are increasingly in the news, nuclear fusion seems, in the very long term, to raise the possibility of providing humanity with virtually inexhaustible energy. Europe is in the forefront of research in this field... Read More(PDF)
n° 338, February 2008 - The Rise of Sovereign Wealth Funds: The New Geography of Wealth. For some time now states have been "making a comeback" in the management of certain strategic areas of the economy, such as energy, as in the case of Russia that was covered in the January 2008 issue of Futuribles. Some emergent countries or countries whose main source of income is their oil revenues are also moving into strategic sectors through the financial markets, using so-called "sovereign" investment funds... Read More(PDF)
n° 337, January 2008- Russia: the Energy Weapon? A few weeks ahead of the Russian presidential elections and in the current context of hydrocarbon prices rises, Futuribles is publishing an article this month on the return of the state to the heart of the Russian energy sector. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian government has carried out an important restructuring of the national energy sector around major public and private companies... Read More(PDF)
n° 336, December 2007 - Water Resources: Elements for a Foresight Analysis. International Debate and National Specificities. The future of water resources and the current - or latent - conflicts around the division of that essential resource for human life represent one of the major issues of the coming decades, if not indeed the next few years. Futuribles, which intends to return to this question shortly, is this month publishing an article by Sébastien Treyer that... Read More(PDF)
n° 335, November 2007 - L'Afrique du Sud, entre laboratoire et exemple. After more than 40 years of segregation, the apartheid regime ended in South Africa in June 1991. Three years later, the first multiracial elections marked the start of the "post-apartheid" period in which South African society set out to change itself in such a way as to remove all trace of the past. How is this process working out, are Blacks gaining a proper place in the economy... Read More(PDF)
n° 334, October 2007 - How Reliable an Indicator Is the Ecological Footprint? The concept of the ecological footprint has become well known as a composite indicator that is supposed to inform us about the space that human beings occupy in order to produce the resource s they consume and the waste they create; this is then set against the ecological capacity of the Earth (its biocapacity), and hence one can work out the... Read More(PDF)
n° 333, September 2007 - Higher Education in Europe. Recent Developments and Future Perspectives. In this article, as the French government sets out to undertake a major reform of the country's higher education system, Barbara Kehm highlights current trends in Europe in this field., The author starts by describing the "Bologna process", which launched a new system of qualifications and a series of major reforms of higher education programmes... Read More(PDF)
n° 332, July 2007 - Ethno-cultural Heterogeneity and Social Cohesion. In this article, Michèle Tribalat examines the consequences of migration for inter-cultural relations in European receiving countries. As she stresses, "in most European societies, immigration has brought about a growing ethno-cultural and religious diversity that is now generating anxiety and discussion about national identity and cohesion"... Read More(PDF)
n° 331, June 2007 - The European Union and Turkish Resistance. Does Turkey Want to Meet the Political Conditions for Joining the EU? Following its expansion to 27 members with the admission of Bulgaria and Rumania in January 2007, the European Union remains open to absorbing further new members, in particular Turkey - even though membership negotiations were suspended in 2006 because of the Cyprus problem... Read More(PDF)
n° 330, May 2007 - The International League Tables of Universities. Inadequate funding, too many students, lack of career prospects for graduates...: the French universities appear to amass criticisms and blockages. Following Jean-Jacques Salomon's article last month on the "strangling of the French universities", this month Futuribles has invited Bertrand Bellon, a professor of economics in Paris, to give his views... Read More(PDF)
n° 329, April 2007 - Sustainable Development and Democracy. The Need to Reform Public Institutions. Aurélien Boutaud is concerned that politicians are unable properly to take account of environmental issues and tries to explain why this is. Although nowadays everyone talks blithely about sustainable development, elected representatives (or the candidates for the French presidential election) probably have little real idea that such development challenges the very concept of the common interest which, ... Read More(PDF)
n° 328, March 2007 - Competitiveness: the German Approach. One cannot help but be struck by the upturn in the German economy and in particular by the improvement in exports of manufactured products. François Michaux analyses here the factors that he thinks have allowed Germany to improve its global competitiveness. Besides relocating certain manufacturing activities to Eastern Europe, the improvements in German competitiveness vis-à-vis the rest of the world can... Read More(PDF)
n° 327, February 2007 - Research and Innovation in Europe: Slow Progress Towards the Aims of the Lisbon Summit. At the European Union summit in Lisbon in 2000, the member states committed themselves to making Europe "the most competitive and dynamic economy" in the world. Seven years later, there seems little chance of achieving this objective for research by 2010. By international standards, the EU is not doing well, and is still lagging behind countries like the USA and Japan... Read More(PDF)
n° 326, January 2007 - Food Security: an Affair of State. Is the EU's Common Agricultural Policy necessary? Complex, if not incomprehensible, the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and its many reforms generate ever more frequent criticisms or, at best, puzzlement. What is the true purpose of this policy to regulate agricultural output and sales within the EU? Is it still essential now that free market principles are applied to almost every productive sector? ... Read More(PDF)
n° 325, December 2006 - Employment in France: the Turning-point? Salvation Through Demographic Change? The fact that the unemployment rate in France continues to be almost 10% is a constant source of worry for the French, now even for the best qualified among them. Nevertheless, as the baby-boomers reach retirement age, major changes are forecast for the working population and for the French labour market ... Read More(PDF)
n° 324, November 2006 - The Police and the Citizenry. Involving the Public in Improving Law and Order Almost five years after the French presidential election campaign of 2002, in which the main focus of debate was on questions of security, how are the French public as individuals dealing with maintaining law and order? Are they basically passive, waiting for the state or the proper authorities to do everything necessary, or are they becoming personally involved? ... Read More(PDF)
n° 323, October 2006 - The Possible Futures for the Indian Economy India, like China, has increasingly fascinated Western economists and analysts. The country that calls itself "the world's largest democracy" looks to be one of the most promising economic powers of the 21st century ... Read More(PDF)
n° 322, September 2006 - The Russians and Democracy What is the position now of Russian society, just over 15 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union? What are the ideological, political and social values that sustain it? Leonid Sedov, a sociologist attached to one of the (few) independent polling organizations in Russia (the Yuri Levada Centre), analyses the main trends in Russian value systems observed in recent years. He shows how public opinion favours strong ideologies and powerful individuals, having over the years (and especially since President Putin's election) resorted to a nostalgic type of patriotism and submission to strong authority ... Read More(PDF)
n° 321, July - August 2006 - Europe and its Outskirts The European Community has grown from the six founder member states who created it after the Second World War to the present 25. The European Union now stretches from the Atlantic in the west to the Carpathians in the east, from Scandinavia in the north to the Mediterranean in the south, not forgetting the "ultra-peripheral" areas, such as the French overseas territories, the Spanish Canary Islands or the Portuguese island of Madeira. Other countries are expecting to join in 2007... Read More(PDF)
n° 320, June2006 - Wageningen and the "Food Valley". The Challenge of Clusters of Excellence Combining Research, Training and Business In 2004-2005, the French government decided to stimulate innovation in France by - among other measures - creating special clusters across the country which would promote synergies among firms, education and training, and research... Read More(PDF)
n° 319, May 2006 - How Is Xenophobia Changing in France ?: The fact that the candidate of the far Right-wing Party, Jean-Marie Le Pen, reached the second-round run-off in the election for French President on 21 April 2002 made a big impression on everyone in France... Read More(PDF)
n° 318, April 2006 - Turkey's Importance in the European Union: Would Its Rapid Population Growth Allow It to Dominate European Decision-making?: The question of whether Turkey should eventually be allowed to join the European Union was much in the news in 2005, and worked its way into the debate about the European Constitution... Read More(PDF)
n° 317, March 2006 - Teleworking in Perspective: In recent years the information and communication technologies have flooded Western households (personal computers, cell phones, the Internet, etc.), sometimes helping to blur the boundaries between professional and private life... Read More(PDF)