The next G20 summit in Seoul in the early days of November, is announced
under the worst auspices. And the year of the French presidency which will
follow is not more promising.
First, this meeting will take place while the previous summits have failed
to end the recession, but only to transfer a portion of the private debt
onto the public debt. No international regulations has been established,
contrary to what has been said, neither on accounting, nor on banks capital,
nor on naked speculation. Nothing. No new engine of real growth has
appeared.
Faced with the continuing recession, and new corporate scandals, Americans
are getting into debt indefinitely, by running the money printing; the
Europeans are content to juxtapose austerity plans without any overall
strategy, the Chinese persist in protecting their dumping capacity and in
accumulating capital. The G20, in the absence of clear procedures of
decision, is not fulfilling its role of coordinator, and is now more than
ever, but a mask of the omnipotence of the United States and China, a mask
of a G2.
The result is also predictable: the war of currencies, the closing of
capital markets, the increase of raw materials and a new general depression.
This is even more absurd because humanity has never known such promises of
growth: a still dynamic demography, considerable savings, dazzling
scientific progress, a world increasingly open, democratic and peaceful,
despite some areas of violence.
To qualify, it is urgent to radically change perspective and to turn these
promises into new factors of development.
The French presidency of the G20, rather than engage in a battle lost in
advance, because premature for the establishment of a global financial
system, should stimulate its partners with some major salutary challenges,
so that humanity can transform scientific advances into new consumer goods
available to all: many topics are possible, from health to education, the
most pressing would be the development of an efficient electric battery, in
order to produce an electric car for a reasonable price.
Humanity would have everything to gain: a truly marketable car without oil
would represent a sustainable global growth factor and the real solution to
the problem of carbon dioxide emissions.
France, country of birth of the automobile industry would have all
legitimacy to make such a proposal. Still it is necessary for the State to
reconstitute as quickly as possible the industrial expertise which it has
been deprived for too long by pure ideology.
Such a project could be jointly funded by global big loans, linking
cutting-edge companies worldwide, on the model of Eureka
in Europe. It would allow the costs-benefits sharing of advanced
general interest and a better understanding of the immense advantages for
all humanity to be united.