On November 12th-13th, I had the chance to attend the amazing meeting of Académie des entrepreneurs held in Prague. The organizers (Ernst&Young, La Compagnie Financière de Rothschild, Les Echos, L’Entreprise and Roularta Media Group) gathered a group of first class experts, among whom: General Georgelin, former Chief of the Defence Staff and current Great Chancellor of the Legion of Honour; Cynthia Fleury, research fellow and associate professor of political philosophy at the American University of Paris, researcher at the Institute of Communication Sciences of CNRS (The National Center of Scientific Research), lecturer at Paris Institute of Political Studies and professor at École Polytechnique; Christian de Boissieu, economist, member of the Attali Commission for the liberation of growth and Chairman of Council of Economic Analysis; Dominique Netter, chief economist at Rothschild; and, as a matter of course, Eric Orsenna, Councillor of State, member of Académie Française, of Attali Commission for the liberation of growth, writer, entrepreneur, former adviser of François Mitterrand and… member of Académie des Entrepreneurs.

This year, the topic under discussion was the Future of Progress and the approach was so comprehensive that it would do no justice to it to attempt a summary. What I would like to point out from our debate is that Progress, which aims somehow at the pursuit of happiness through the transcendence of our destructive impulses (Hegel’s vision), shall not arise under any historical circumstances. Even worse yet, it is often followed by waves of fear originating from people who do not grasp its meaning and it can sometimes have dreadful results. So, we could wonder about the road leading from Marie Curie to Oppenheimer. Or even about the coincidence occurring in historical events such as Queen Isabella I sponsoring Christopher Columbus’s expedition to reach the Indies, and then ordering the exile of the Jewish subjects from Spain, despite the fact that they were traders who had been contributing to the power attained by her country! As a good politician, was Isabella putting her stakes on the fears of some in order to give way simultaneously to a major innovation which was to change the face of economy and geopolitics forever?

Was there any post-Auschwitz future for Progress on the old continent?
Europe was for a long time the continent of progress. Technologies might well have been created elsewhere, but it was in Europe that they were transformed and prepared for universalization in order to achieve a shared comfort, a lesser effort and an increased confidence in the future… Yet, it is also in Auschwitz, in the heart of Europe, that the most intricate death machine was set up, which couldn’t be further from the idea of progress. Was there, post-Auschwitz, any future for progress on the old continent? This is a question that remains without an answer 70 years later. This is too short of a period and there are too many signals saying yes or no. Meanwhile, Europe is no longer the only place in the world where progress has become a common place. Many of the European scientists from the first half of the 20th century were of Jewish origins. U.S. and Israel have become new areas of confidence in the future for the myriads of brilliant minds and their unique comprehension of difference. This year, the Nobel prize in chemistry went to Israel. U.S. universities started exerting their influence worldwide while painfully giving birth to the first model of modern and genuinely multiracial society. The Far East could now become the leading continent in the energetic sector. As to India and Latin America, people there are aware of the social disparities existing in their societies and there are incredible energies unfolding, according to our criteria, in order to allow anyone to climb the social ladder: entrepreneurship classes from the youngest age, classes of tolerance and respect (!), participation of disabled and autistic people in order to enhance ergonomics related to space or products! Meanwhile, Europeans are considering deglobalization, without ever having witnessed these new forces of progress… , which is evidence for the excessive old age of the electorate in our nations! They are the ones who impersonate, behind seemingly noble ideas, the fears that have accompanied the large phases of progress. Mass mobile data telecommunication and genetic engineering are fundamental areas of progress of our time. They are still in their infancy, certainly, but they will change the geopolitical map forever and they will distribute differently the world’s wealth, breaking old oligopolies set up in Europe and the U.S. at the beginning of the 20th century. Why defend them? What would be the point of it?

Make Europe, not war!
What is there left to do? Plenty! We are the only continent that conquered war… after having been the one that had refined and generalized it to its highest levels. This is a huge achievement within a geographical, demographic, economical and cultural space as important as ours! What a wonderful leverage for our future! The Far East is still fighting its wars! Why is it that India represents 10% of the world’s weapon imports? In Latin America, wars, guerillas and the horrible mafias have not yet completely disappeared. What about Africa? Under such circumstances, have the Europeans, who have won their biggest battle when they chose a common currency, nothing better to do than to destroy this powerful symbol to the world’s eyes, the only symbol, for that matter, of their unity? This continent, that has invented enduring peace between nations who used to be at war, did it not achieve the greatest progress in humanity? We shouldn’t allow this remarkable achievement to be destroyed by the populist and the fearful, brought together by the drive for the worse! If you want to achieve progress for everybody, worldwide, make Europe, not war!