(Applause)
Hello.
Today we are exactly
to one month of the first round of presidential elections.
And if I’m here,
it is to convince you that it would have been necessary
that the next president, or the next President of the Republic
is 25 years old.
I see who are smiling and are a little worried.
“25 years old, anyway …”
I reassure you right away:
it’s 25 years old or younger, you’re still good.
The first reason is that the world has changed,
that it changes
and that it will change more and more quickly,
whereas politics and especially those who make it, they,
have not moved.
Here is Paris in 1900
and Paris today.
Here is a plane in 1900,
an airplane today.
Here is a phone in 1900,
here is a phone today.
And here is politics in 1900,
and politics today.
You understood :
it’s exactly the same.
The world has changed,
our ways of interacting, communicating, working, living,
have completely transformed themselves.
And yet, we do politics like at the beginning of the 20th century,
with people who were born around this time.
And these changes, they have accelerated enormously with the emergence of the Internet.
If my dad’s childhood was similar to that of his father,
mine does not even look like my sister’s
who is only five years older than me.
The power of our computers has multiplied by 10,000 in 20 years.
And it is at about this speed that society has evolved.
Of the 555 deputies elected in 1997,
20 years ago so,
there are still 121 today who have not moved from their seats.
The world is changing fast,
far too fast for people who were born at a time,
and it’s not their fault,
where we traveled with a Michelin map,
where we paid the phone by the minute,
and where the women needed the agreement of their husbands
to open a bank account.
My grandmother, who is 66,
the average age of a parliamentarian in France today,
still kisses his computer screen
to say goodbye when doing a Skype.
(Laughter)
It does not matter, it’s my grandmother, I forgive her.
Admit that it’s still a lot more problematic
when we talk about people who have the keys of the truck in their hands.
And again, I’m not talking about the issues that are coming,
because tomorrow is the collaborative economy,
it’s the blockchain that will transform democracy,
it’s the IOT and the big data,
who will transform our economy, our industry, our daily lives.
Let me tell you a little story.
A few weeks ago, I met one of the Paris deputies.
And at one point, in the discussion,
I asked him what he thought about open source.
He replied that he never drank mineral water.
(Laughter)
The political world is completely out of step with our society.
And not only because he pays for Arnys pants at 13,000 euros,
this is not my subject today
but because he does not realize the magnitude of current and future issues.
Now, what is politics,
if not anticipate, prepare your country, your children, your economy,
to the world of tomorrow?
And how can we claim to prepare the world of tomorrow,
when we are not able to understand the world today?
Why entrust the future of our country to people who, for 20 years,
tried to reform the driver’s license,
who are working hard, even today, without success,
while in 2040, there will be more drivers?
How to entrust our country to people who, for 50 years,
have multiplied the reforms of the national education,
to know if, yes or no, you had to have school on Wednesday morning,
without ever mentioning digital education, or learning digital.
Whereas in 2030, in 13 years, tomorrow so,
90% of trades will require computer skills.
So yes,
they have experience for them.
But as Confucius said:
“The experience is a lantern that is worn on the back
and that never illuminates only the road traveled. “
Now, let me tell you,
this road that we are talking about, it looks more like the Chemin des Dames,
than to the Sacred Way.
No, but what are we talking about?
I let you look at the country he leaves us.
25% unemployment among people under 25,
a public debt that equals 100% of our GDP
and that our generation will have to repay.
A social fracture that has deepened,
disillusionment with institutions,
a world on the verge of ecological disaster,
in short, you have understood the story.
Quite simply,
we are the first generation
who will live less well than that of his parents.
Excuse me.
And one of the reasons that explains this catastrophic record,
is that politics, today,
can not project in the long term.
Again, it’s not their fault
but we can imagine that there is a bias,
a certain moral hazard to make decisions.
Or rather, given the current context,
do not make decisions
that will have consequences in 20 or 30 years,
while they will not be alive to suffer the consequences.
If we resume the game earlier, here are the members today.
That’s where they will be in 30 years.
(Laughter)
And that’s partly because of this moral hazard
that the current policy does nothing
only to solve the problems of the present moment.
But when we pee on it, we never get hot long.
We must accept the need of our country,
initiate deep structural reforms,
whose benefits will not be seen until much later.
It’s up to young people today to make the decisions
who will draw the world of tomorrow,
for we will be the only ones alive to suffer the consequences.
And that’s good, because we’re the only ones
able to find these long-term solutions.
We have a natural understanding of the mutations of our societies
and digital issues.
That’s normal, we are born with it.
Far from the cliché of the pre-pubescent teen,
who no longer separates from his mobile phone,
our generation, the Y or the Z, we do not know anymore,
understands the super-fast evolution of our society.
Better still, we are actors of its mutations.
Who changes the world today?
Who impacts companies the most?
These are the entrepreneurs.
It’s Marc Zuckerberg with Facebook.
It’s Steve Jobs with Apple.
It’s Larry Page with Google.
And you know how old they were, when they started these revolutions?
You guessed: less than 25 years old.
And it’s for a good reason.
All have managed to overcome the barriers of experience,
the straitjacket of evidence,
to arrive without complexes with ideas
which broke all established standards.
This innocence, this naivety almost, peculiar to youth,
is the source of tremendous creative power.
But politics needs to be reinvented.
Whether in the way of governing,
how to involve citizens,
how to organize, manage cities.
The world is breaking.
Politics needs to be too.
Why in the economy, in sport, in culture,
it is the young people who have the power and who move the lines,
and not in politics?
At this stage of the intervention,
you must surely take me for a dangerous illuminated.
And that’s not a big deal, because, anyway, for 2017, it’s cooked.
(Laughter)
And,
a good president must also have qualities,
like wisdom, hindsight, or diplomacy,
which, as you’ve seen for 10 minutes,
is not the strongest of my generation.
(Laughter)
But it remains
that absolutely more young people are needed in politics.
Because, without going into the extremism of youthism,
we live today, under the tyranny of gerontocracy,
and it’s not just the presidential election.
We represent 15% of the population
and yet, there are zero MPs under 25, today,
and only 0.1% of the more than 500,000 local elected representatives in France
are of our generation.
And I’m not talking about young people taken as an alibi by traditional parties,
to play beer-pong with Alain Juppé,
wave the flags in the meetings.
No, I’m talking to you about the young people elected, to act concretely, to decide.
Because I am convinced
that we have a lot to contribute to politics,
not alone, of course, but together,
in an intergenerational dynamic of sharing knowledge.
Because ultimately, it may not be at a crossroads
that we will find the solutions,
but at the crossroads of ages and generations.
Unfortunately, only young people seem to have understood this need.
And today, traditional parties continue to present the same faces
with the same ideas, election after election.
We will be, in June 2017,
at a pivotal moment, with two perspectives:
looking in the past for a solution that, not working yesterday,
should miraculously walk today.
Or assume
the imposing necessity of modernity
and entrust our future also to those who understand it
and those who will live it.
And it is to offer this perspective,
with “Let’s Get Children”, we will introduce 100 candidates under 25
in the parliamentary elections in June.
We also plan to put 10,000 young people in municipal councils in 2020.
Because,
it is when we associate this experience and this madness,
that we will find, perhaps, the strength to advance
and ways to invent a more just and humane society.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
”
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