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? In this article, Martine Padilla demonstrates the main characteristics of this diet and shows how eating patterns are developing in the various regions of the Mediterranean Basin, chiefly as a result of societal changes and modernization. She also analyses the impacts of these changes with regard to food security, both quantitative and qualitative.
Then, basing herself on a foresight exercise on quantitative and qualitative food security in the Mediterranean region to the year 2020, she presents four possible future scenarios. These are: "Food Autism", "The Market and Modernity at All Costs", "A Harmonious Combination of the Local and the International," and "Taking Responsibility for Food: Redistribution and Health". Lastly, she offers a series of recommendations designed to promote the desired food security, including, most notably, a concerted, all-embracing, consumer-centred policy, respect for traditional produce, and the mobilization of actors at all levels of the supply chain. These are lines of action that can all contribute to the - environmental and cultural - sustainability of the Mediterranean region.

Les services aux personnes (SAP) connaissent un développement sensible en réponse aux transformations profondes de la société, notamment de l’activité professionnelle féminine. Ils font aussi l’objet d’un soutien public important. Celui-ci avait initialement porté sur certaines activités à destination de publics fragiles (personnes âgées dépendantes, enfants en bas âge, personnes handicapées) ou d’aide à l’accueil et la garde de jeunes enfants dans le cadre, alors, de la politique familiale. Depuis une quinzaine d’années, le ...

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Dany Cluzeau, chargée d’études prospective à la MAIF, a présenté le bilan de la veille qu’elle a réalisé en 2008 autour de la thématique des comportements de consommation.

Pékin a dévoilé en octobre 2008 un vaste plan de réforme de son système de santé avec un objectif ambitieux : une couverture médicale de base pour les populations des villes et des campagnes d'ici 2020. Le gouvernement a présenté sa réforme sur Internet pour lancer un débat public et inviter la population à donner son avis sur le plan.

La France fait traditionnellement figure d'exception en matière de presse : alors que les Français sont de gros lecteurs de presse magazine, ils négligent la presse quotidienne payante. Cette tendance ne cesse de s'accentuer, et les prévisions sur l'avenir des quotidiens payants sont de plus en plus pessimistes.

Pour ouvrir cette démarche de repérage et d’analyse des innovations de politiques sociales, ce premier document, à visée de cadrage général, présente les composantes du système français des politiques sociales, dans leur fondement, leurs évolutions et leurs perspectives. Il insiste notamment sur la place des politiques sociales françaises dans le contexte européen. Il propose aussi une lecture des forces, faiblesses, menaces et opportunités du système. Sommaire :• Introduction. Diagnostic panoramique et questions pour l’avenir • Définition, organisation et enjeux généraux ...

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Selon une enquête Ipsos réalisée en 2006, un Français sur cinq a déjà expérimenté la colocation, et 82 % d'entre eux pensent que ce mode de vie va se développer dans les années à venir. Si la colocation évoque souvent l'image de jeunes étudiants soucieux de ne pas dépenser leur maigre budget uniquement en loyer, les plus de 55 ans représentent pourtant 2 % des colocataires. Un chiffre certes dérisoire, mais qui pourrait bien croître dans les années à venir ...

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There is now a massive scientific consensus around global warming and the subject is a major focus of media interest in most industrialized countries. The man-made origin of the phenomenon is also generally accepted; hence the efforts expended by those in government, the international community, environmental organizations etc. to limit its scope by acting on its main driver, greenhouse gas emissions.
It is in this context that a market in the voluntary compensation of greenhouse gas emissions has developed in recent years. This is known as the "voluntary carbon offsetting market" and consists in selling activities or projects that are supposed, in the medium or long term, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, thereby compensating for the climatically damaging effects of the purchasers' current activities. In other words, buyers may be said to be giving themselves a clear conscience about today's emissions by paying for an act of emission-reduction tomorrow.
Though the principle may seem praiseworthy, on closer inspection the idea of carbon offsetting, as currently on offer, turns out to be deceptive. Augustin Fragnière demonstrates the point here with a precise analysis of the estimates and forecasts available in this field (showing how disputable the upfront emissions assessments are), and also of the spatial and temporal dimensions that are very largely concealed by the players in the carbon offsetting market. He shows, lastly, that carbon offsetting mechanisms lead to action being postponed, with an aggravation of the harm done and an increased need for action in the future as a consequence, whereas concrete initiatives to promote behavioural change in the present would have both quicker and clearer effects on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Le niveau de pauvreté des enfants est une question particulièrement sensible outre-Atlantique. Il s'agit, en quelque sorte, d'un des indicateurs de la santé du pays. Alors que depuis le milieu des années 1990 la tendance était à la baisse et à la stabilisation, le problème est récemment reparti à la hausse.

Climate change is now a familiar subject for most of the individuals living in the industrialized countries, and no doubt a subject of growing interest in the emergent countries such as China. It arises with increasing frequency in the discussion of current affairs, when there is a significant climatic event (tornado, flood, drought etc.), international negotiations on how to deal with global warming, or scientific discussions etc.
How has this theme lodged itself in public debate? Who are the actors in that debate and how much of a part do they play? André Lebeau has examined these questions, attempting to determine how this initially highly scientific subject has over time found a foothold in economic, political and media debate.
After a brief presentation of the various actors concerned, he makes a detailed analysis of the emergence of the debate within the scientific community, particularly through the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). He then shows how climate change has entered economic debate, further gaining in complexity because it is so difficult to envisage its impacts or the economic solutions to it over time-periods of the order of a century. He then stresses the contribution of the media which, while giving the phenomenon visibility and hence making it a subject of interest for public opinion and the political world, do not always distinguish between what is essential and what is merely secondary. Lastly, he clarifies the current role of public opinion and of political decision-makers with regard to climate change, stressing that the process of entry into the debate and of dealing politically with climate questions is a very slow one - perhaps too slow, given the scale of the responses required.

Alors que les industriels s'interrogent sur la voiture de demain, comment les automobilistes envisagent-ils leur relation avec ce mode de transport ? À en croire le baromètre de la mobilité durable 2008 de la Macif et une récente enquête réalisée en France par BVA pour le groupe Fiat , les " néoconducteurs " seraient désormais la norme : plus préoccupés par l'environnement et les autres, ouverts d'esprit, la voiture est pour eux plus un service qu'un objet.

In late August 2008, after several months of wavering in which the projected law perhaps seemed doomed, French president Nicolas Sarkozy officially announced the introduction of a new scheme for assisting those in difficult or marginal situations, the so-called Active Solidarity Income. He also announced a timetable for the measure and how it would be funded. About four million French homes suffering from unemployment or casual employment (including 1.5 million "working poor"), or those on income support, should, he said, be affected by the measure. It is to come into force in July 2009 and will be debated in the French parliament from 22 September 2008 onwards, a few days before the publication of this issue.
Chantal Euzéby takes stock of the scheme here and reminds us how necessary it is for the benefits muddle to be reviewed and simplified, so that social benefits can recover their basic role of returning the groups concerned to work. She outlines the project for merging the various benefits, but also raises some questions that remain unanswered, concerning, for example, which social security scheme will apply to the beneficiaries, the index-linking of the new provision, and the decisions to be made over the "reinsertion" strand, particularly regarding the division of responsibilities between the state and the local authorities.

Is our civilization heading straight "for the abyss"? This is the question raised in a recent book Vers l'abîme ? [Toward the Abyss?] (Paris: L'Herne, 2007) by Edgar Morin, the famous French philosopher, whose major work La Méthode (1977-2004) develops a system of thinking aimed at grasping reality in all its complexity. Pierre F. Gonod, who has read this recent book for Futuribles, presents here the main outlines of Morin's thinking. After reminding us of the "crisis of modernity" our societies are currently passing through, he examines the reform of modes of thinking and reasoning proposed by Edgar Morin. He then clarifies the philosopher's analysis of globalization and the emergence of "world-society" and describes the answer that a "politics of civilization" can offer in the context of the post-9/11 period. In the face of the catastrophe that is looming, concludes Morin, only thoroughgoing change can offer a way forward for our civilization.