Annual report upon the state of france in 2011: the economic, social and environmental situation

Visuel
Annual report upon the state of france in 2011: the economic, social and environmental situation
Type of text :
Opinion
Type of referral :
Continuous referral
Working group :
Section for Economy and Finance
Date d'adoption
Date adopted : 12/14/2011
Rapporteur(s) :
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André-Jean GUÉRIN
Environment and Nature Group
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Yves ZEHR
Cooperation Group
    Overview
    Présentation

    The Economic, Social and Environmental Council’s report upon the state of France, for the first year, takes over from the Economic Report. In the preceding works, an important place had been accorded to the crisis. It is necessary for us to go beyond the use of this term, which is sometimes incantatory, to explain the phenomena and developments which give a singular character to the current period.
    The loss of value in the residential property market in the United States in 2007 lead to a default in the repayment of loans, which in one year, with the deregulation of financial activities, spread to the whole of the international financial system. Only a massive public intervention is succeeding in checking it, but it is transferring the debt crisis to the States. The erosion of 10 points in 25 years from the share of salaries in the value added of OECD countries, including France, does not allow hope for rediscovering significant consumption from this source as the substitute for credit in order to increase purchasing power, which is depleted. Finally, the limits of our planet impose an imperative constraint upon human activities through the decreasing supply and increasing cost of resources and by their consequences (in particular global warming).
    This convergence of factors gives the crisis a unique nature. It is multi-factorial, global and systemic. It imposes a metamorphosis, a transition, for what Edgar Morin calls a «policy of civilisation» As an «intermediate country» to use Jean-Hervé Lorenzi’s expression, France has the strengths needed to achieve this mutution.