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I must admit, that I feel quite passionate about this subject. It all started for me 5 years ago, when I read "Empty Planet, the Shock of Global Population Decline" by two Canadian researchers. I had no clue before of the speed of this decline. Thus, with more figures and details, the "Sciences Po" professor David Duhamel elaborates on this theme in "Un Monde sans Enfants" that was published in '24 and that I strongly recommend as it's not only very very interesting but also very well written... Sorry if it's a bit of a long summary, but it's just the reflection about how interested I am about the subject... Enjoy!

K has sent this interesting podcast to kick start this category with a direct connection between the economy and Europe's political situation...

Let's start easy... The famous naturalist David Attenborough is probably one of the earliest crusaders in favor of the environment and biodiveristy. His book (and subsequent film), "A Life on Our Planet" is a must read, to take a step back and get a more holistic view to the climate change problems that we read about everyday.
Check the trailer of his film, that you can watch on Netflix :
https://www.ourplanet.com/en/video/david-attenborough-a-life-on-our-planet-trailer/

Further down, let's have a look at how critical our Earth condition is with 6 of 9 Plantary boundaries breached...

Let's start by taking a look at what has made civilisations fail and empire collapse... Two books have meant a lot to me in ploughing through these topics : "After Tamerlane, The Rise and Fall of Global Empires 1400-2000" by John Darwin and "Immoderate Greatness, Why Civilizations fail" by William Ophuls. I have chosen some excerpts below

Having spoken to two friends recently about this book, that I read some years ago, I thought I would take the opportunity to present it in this forum.
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir, on one hand, belongs to the number of important testimonies of life in Nazi death camps and on the other hand, it adds lessons for spiritual survival. Based on his own experience and the stories of his patients, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose.
Frankl spent three years in four different concentration camps, where his parents, brother and wife died. As for the more well-known writers on the holocaust such as Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi or Jorge Semprun, the mere act of surviving came noy only from determination, but also from action. At the heart of his theory, known as logotherapy, is a conviction that the primary human drive is not pleasure but the pursuit of what we find meaningful. Man's Search for Meaning has become a very influential book in America; it inspires to find significance in the very act of living.
Beyond the first developments below, the rest is more to be grasped as "Food for thought", but it all comes from the Logotherapy way of thinking and the book...

Why are our democracies in danger ?

Just as an intro to this section, a quick view on religion by a French sociologist, Edouard Bohler in his essay "Où est le Sens?" To be followed...

As a first thematic, I have chosen the difficult and quite "French" subject of "Laïcité" which is translated by "secularism". The anglo-saxon world is not very familiar with this notion, as the choice has been made in those societies to allow for more liberty in expressing one's religious beliefs.

AI : Demystifying the Technology and Diving in to its Moral Dilemmas and Future Trajectory

L’Empire de l’Ombre (The Shadow Empire)
Guerre et Terre au temps de l’IA (War and Earth in AI times)

Le Grand Continent is a recent online magazine focusing on Geopolitical questions, being edited by the « Groupe d’Etudes Géopolitiques », an independent research center based at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and recognized as being of general interest.

They edit and print an annual review on specific topics, based on articles, written by specialists, of which this one came out in 2025.

Its main focus is on the development of the alliance between Big Tech and the US government under Trump with outspoken plans, that send shivers in your back. In this review, introduced by Giuliano da Empoli (author of « Le Mage du Kremlin », « Les Ingénieurs du Chaos », and « The Hour of the Predators »), several authors, economists, and key figures of today’s technological developments give their views on general or more specific factors of this development. Among others, one of Silicon Valley’s main investors, Perter Thiel (on his libertarian views), Sam Altman (founder of Open AI) on the future of AI, or Marc Andreessen, another heavy weight Silicon Valley investor on the techno-optimist movement…

In the magazine, you will also read excerpts from Mario Draghi’s big research, published last year on Europe’s needs to reform and other contributions on the threats for Europe of the American « Techno-Cesars ». I strongly recommend to read it.

Below, some excerpts that struck me…