The redistribution of sector maps

As Isabelle Méjean’s research (Best French Young Economist Prize, 2020) has highlighted, countries and companies have gradually specialised within the global industrial and commercial circuit. We can see the combined effect of economic optimisation and differential social and environmental pressure. The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the fragility that can result from the resulting fragmentation of value chains and the concentration of certain productive stages in the hands of de facto oligopolies. Between political and social incantation and industrial and economic feasibility, the gap is wide and the relocation of productive activities can be neither immediate nor universal. Therefore, how can we select the processes that should be repatriated as a priority, how can we guarantee the economic viability of the economic actors’ efforts in an unequally regulated and always competitive world, and how can we preserve the benefits of technology and services?