Industry is our future. This assertion may seem odd, since a different view seems to have been accepted since the end of the 1980s: that we have become a ‘post-industrial society’ in which services have replaced industry, complemented by a ‘new economy’ of the Internet and of finance. With the entry of India and China into the global economy, the society of the immaterial is reckoned to be based in the West, and that of industry in the South and in Asia. With the need for sustainable development, industry should apparently be banned: it pollutes, and represents a threat both to human beings and to the future of the planet. Against arguments like these, our claim seems to be unreasonable.

And yet for many years now we have had to live with a world without rules, a Europe without projects, and a France which is searching for an economic strategy. In the current debate in Europe and in France, the solutions to this situation follow two different paths. For some, redemption lies in the generalisation of flexibility in all directions, and a continuous reduction in the cost of work. However, we know that this solution leads directly to increased exposure of our economy to the competition of the major emerging nations. For others, the answer lies in an unremitting technological race which would inevitably exclude a large number of workers, and also reduce our industrial base.

The role of politics is to open perspectives and make choices, and not to act as the vector of an argument advocating adaptation under constraint, resignation and a defensive approach. The real objective is our suggestion in this essay: to mobilise on the basis of an industrial development project by the creation of activities and jobs, by their localisation and their expertise.