Followers of Futuribles ought to enjoy The USB Key, the new novel by Jean-Philippe Toussaint. It is set against the backdrop of foresight and futures work, and even features the Futuribles’ former offices.  The hero of the novel, Jean Detrez, is a strategic foresight specialist at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in Brussels. His backstory: before becoming an EU official, he worked in the 1990s as an editor at the journal Futuribles. He was based in our Paris ...

With “La France des territoires, défis et promesses” (France's territories, challenges and promises), Pierre Veltz offers a stimulating prospective analysis. By anchoring it in the long term and drawing on his in-depth knowledge of socio-economic transformations, particularly those concerning globalisation and ‘hyperindustrialisation’, he deconstructs many of the misconceptions that clutter public debate and manages to articulate France's political challenges in new terms. His hypothesis is that we are witnessing a local turning point which, if well negotiated, could ...