Le troisième aéroport parisien : démocratie ou démagogie ?

The question of whether or not to build a third airport in the Paris region keeps cropping up. Consequently, for the last 25 years, numerous studies have concluded, in essence, that there was no need for this project to start immediately but that it would nevertheless be wise to earmark a site that could ultimately replace the existing airport at Orly.
The question was therefore raised as to which site to choose, and this gave rise to a public debate that Michel Godet summarizes here, stressing both the usefulness of a preliminary public discussion before decisions of this kind are made and the ill-effects when the debate is poorly conducted.
He argues that the “great debate” launched in 2001 with the DUCSAI commission (Démarche utilité concertée pour un site aéroportuaire international) to achieve agreement on a site for the new international airport was curtailed, partly because it was launched without the protagonists having a real knowledge of the parameters of the problem. Godet stresses how important it is for public decisions involving the future to be the subject of public debate – public participation being in any case a prerequisite for involvement in the project – and criticizes strongly the democratic pseudo-debates that he considers are worse than anything.
The article is an extract from the book 2006 et après… Le choc démographique (2006 and After… The Demographic Shock) to be published by Odile Jacob (Paris) in January 2003. We have also quoted the plea that Michel Godet makes for the French strategic planning agency, the “Commissariat général du Plan”, to be turned into the “Commissariat à la prospective”, a timely suggestion just when the keen commitment to planning might give way to a keen commitment to anticipation in the service of strategy.