At a time when crises follow one another and economic certainties waver, the question of collective action is forcefully returning to public debate. Invited to the Entrepreneuriales 2026 in Nice, economist, essayist and professor at Paris School of Business, Thomas Porcher, delivered an engaged reflection on the role of collective action in the economic resilience of territories and nations.
Moderated by Isabelle Auzias from La Tribune, the conference explored the links between successive crises, economic sovereignty, reindustrialization and collective responsibility. Beyond economic analysis, Thomas Porcher offered a political and societal reading of ongoing transformations.
An era marked by fragmentation
From the opening of his speech, Thomas Porcher painted a concerning picture. According to him, French society has never been so fragmented.
This polarization manifests itself in political debate, but also in social behaviors. Having taught young students for several years, he observes a growing difficulty in accepting nuance and compromise.
This evolution is occurring, however, at a time when collective challenges have never been so numerous. “We are living from crisis to crisis,” he summarizes.
The era when companies could build twenty-year strategies seems over. The certainties of the happy globalization of the 1990s have given way to an environment marked by permanent uncertainty.
The 2008 crisis: the first major shock
For Thomas Porcher, the 2008 financial crisis represents a historic rupture. Economists believed at the time that major threats would come from emerging economies. Yet the collapse originated at the very heart of the global economic system: the United States. The economist recalls that this crisis was primarily one of excess private debt, not public debt.
Subprime loans, granted to already vulnerable borrowers, fueled a gigantic housing bubble. When it burst, the entire global financial system faltered. Faced with this exceptional situation, the response was collective. States intervened massively to save banks and prevent the collapse of the real economy.
For Thomas Porcher, this experience constitutes concrete proof of the usefulness of collective action when market mechanisms no longer suffice.
Covid-19: when the State becomes the insurer of last resort
The Covid-19 pandemic reinforced this conviction.
Within weeks, a large part of the global economy was paralyzed. Without public intervention, many companies would have disappeared.
State-guaranteed loans, partial unemployment benefits, direct aid to businesses: governments mobilized unprecedented resources to maintain economic activity. For Thomas Porcher, this crisis recalled an often forgotten truth: in critical moments, the State remains the actor capable of coordinating a large-scale collective response.
A few months later, the war in Ukraine caused a new economic shockwave with the return of energy inflation.
Then tensions in the Middle East fueled new concerns about global supplies.
According to him, one conclusion emerges: the majority of major contemporary crises are exogenous. They come from outside national economies.
The return of economic sovereignty
Faced with this accumulation of shocks, several notions have returned to economic vocabulary: Reindustrialization, Sovereignty, Relocation, Resilience.
So many concepts that had disappeared from dominant discourse during the decades of globalization. For Thomas Porcher, the economic paradigm must now evolve.
The idea that Western economies could specialize solely in high value-added services while outsourcing industrial production now shows its limits. The health crisis revealed numerous strategic dependencies. The case of masks has become emblematic.
The mask example: incoherent collective action
During the pandemic, the State asked several French companies to produce masks. Some invested massively to respond to the health emergency. Sales exploded during the crisis. But once the pandemic ended, public orders returned to cheaper foreign suppliers.
Result: several French producers found themselves in difficulty.
For Thomas Porcher, this episode illustrates a major inconsistency between political rhetoric on sovereignty and concrete economic decisions. Reindustrialization cannot work without long-term visibility. Yet entrepreneurs need stability to invest.
Rehabilitating planning
The word may seem outdated. It sometimes evokes the administered economies of the 20th century. Yet Thomas Porcher defends the idea that some form of planning is essential. According to him, all economic activity already relies on planning.
Companies plan their investments. Students plan their studies.
Households plan their property purchases. The real question is therefore not whether to plan, but rather the coherence and stability of that planning. Permanent changes in political direction discourage long-term investments.
According to him, the European solar panel sector constitutes a particularly revealing example. After dominating the global market, Europe gradually abandoned its support for the industry, leaving leadership to China.
Innovation often arises from collective action
To illustrate his point, Thomas Porcher drew on one of the most iconic objects of our era: the iPhone. Contrary to popular belief, the fundamental technologies that make up the modern smartphone were not developed exclusively by private companies.
The Internet, GPS, Voice recognition, The touchscreen. All these innovations have their origins in research programs largely funded by public authorities.
According to the economist, the greatest technological advances often arise from the articulation between public investment and entrepreneurial innovation. The State takes the initial risks. Companies then transform these discoveries into market-accessible products. This complementarity constitutes, according to him, one of the most effective forms of economic collective action.
SMEs, invisible pillars of territorial collective action
Thomas Porcher devoted a significant part of his speech to small and medium-sized enterprises. According to him, their role goes far beyond simple wealth creation. A company is also a social institution. When a factory closes, it’s not just jobs that disappear. Families also leave the territory, shops close, public services weaken.
This reality explains the territorial fractures observed in certain French regions. The economist notably cites several territories where GDP per capita has stagnated or declined for more than a decade. These dynamics fuel what some geographers call “peripheral France” or the “empty diagonal.”
The central role of SMEs in French society
Thomas Porcher recalls several particularly significant data points. SMEs employ approximately 80% of apprentices. They massively support local initiatives. They contribute to the economic vitality of territories. They have created a large part of net jobs in recent years. Moreover, they enjoy exceptional trust capital among the French.
This proximity constitutes a major strategic advantage in a period when large institutions are sometimes contested. Economic collective action often begins at this local scale.
Why do SMEs struggle to recruit?
The recruitment question is now at the heart of entrepreneurial concerns. According to Thomas Porcher, the difficulties encountered by SMEs go far beyond salary issues. An employee also chooses a territory.
They look at housing possibilities. The quality of transport, access to healthcare, availability of public services, quality of digital infrastructure. These elements fall directly under the purview of local authorities.
In other words, a territory’s competitiveness depends as much on its infrastructure as on its businesses. Collective action is therefore also expressed through the capacity of a local ecosystem to create favorable conditions for economic activity.
Three levels of collective responsibility
For Thomas Porcher, economic collective action rests on three complementary levels. The first level is that of entrepreneurs: they create jobs, invest and innovate. The second level is that of local authorities: they create living conditions that enable businesses to attract and retain talent. The third level is that of the State: it must protect the economy against major crises and define long-term strategic directions.
When these three levels work together, collective action becomes a true driver of development. When they contradict each other, vulnerabilities quickly appear.
The case of European artificial intelligence
In concluding his speech, Thomas Porcher broadened his reflection to global technological competition.
Europe, he believes, has often produced remarkable innovations without managing to transform them into global champions. Minitel, Alcatel, Qwant.
So many examples cited to illustrate this difficulty. Faced with the dominance of American and Chinese giants, he advocates for a more ambitious industrial policy.
Artificial intelligence today constitutes particularly strategic terrain. Through the example of Mistral AI, he emphasizes the importance of supporting European players capable of competing with American platforms. According to him, digital sovereignty cannot be limited to declarations of intent. It requires massive investments, assumed political choices and a genuine collective strategy.
A conference that questions our economic model
Beyond sometimes divisive debates about the role of the State, Thomas Porcher’s speech had the merit of placing collective action at the center of economic reflection. In a world marked by geopolitical, health, energy and technological crises, the question is no longer just how to create wealth. It is also to determine how to organize the cooperation needed to preserve it.
Entrepreneurs, local authorities and public power then appear not as competing actors, but as components of the same ecosystem. An idea that resonated particularly within the framework of the Entrepreneuriales 2026.
Because behind the individual success of each entrepreneur often lies a deeper reality: that of a collective capable of creating the conditions for innovation, growth and resilience.
