For a Europe of solidarity on territories – the inspirational speech of Claude Alphandéry, the honorary President of France Active
Claude Alphandéry, Honorary President & Founder of France Active, celebrated his 100th birthday on 27th November 2022. The resistance fighter and visionary of social economy took this opportunity to call for new cooperation to accelerate the transformation towards a more social, more inclusive, and more sustainable economy.
In this video recorded few months before his birthday as France was holding the presidency of the Council of the European Union, the staunch European shares his view of the social dimension of the European Union. In his opinion, the economical Europe is what made the faster step forward during the past ten years, especially regarding markets opening and competition between member States. He also thinks that the cultural dimension of Europe has spread well as well as the education, thanks to the very useful Erasmus programme. However, little has been made regarding the social dimension of Europe, especially on solidarity and the relationships between people in everyday life as well as in working life.
Recovery is a good opportunity to “embed the social utility in the economic activity”. With the support of the European Investment Bank, all the member states should be able to give priority to solidarity-based investments. Moreover, it’s important to give a greater place to the territories to push the Europe of solidarity forward. According to Claude Alphandéry, there are many initiatives throughout Europe that can be shared to inspire stakeholders on the field. This can be seen through the growth of the Third Place, or the development of a global approach to health care in living areas, short circuits, etc.
All these approaches must be developed and generalised to all European countries: each territory has the power to make Europe more social and more united.
France Active at the « Social economy, the future of Europe » event
