Fifty years after the signature of the Treaty of Rome, the European continent is now almost entirely structured as an original and particularly integrated type of organisation. The European Union has nevertheless reached a crossroads. Two sorganisational options are open to it: to become a world power or to remain merely a free-trade area.

France wants to see a truly political European entity; a peaceful and non-hegemonic power, capable of making its voice heard, and of having weight in the affairs of a world that is now globalised and multipolar. However, reaching this goal can only be envisaged if the European Union frees itself economically, technologically and even militarily from its principal partner–the United States. To achieve that will require a genuine policy of technological sovereignty.

The challenges which Europe must confront as a precondition for any move towards emancipation and power are to recognise the problem of technological sovereignty, identify the key sectors and to put in place the structures necessary to master them.