These remarks on the French Science Council were published in Le Figaro on July 7, 2022 and appear here with permission of the author. Translated by Russell A. Berman, whose comments are here.
The Science Council met for the last time this week and has issued its 75th and final opinion. It will disappear officially on July 31. In its final statement, it underscored the importance of better scientific education for the youth, who will be the public leaders of the future, and it recommended the creation of a “Council of Science,” which would consist of a “group of scientists of the highest quality” to advise the head of state. Whether these recommendations are followed or not, it is likely that some new organ will be established in the coming months. In any case, we are at the end of an institution that played a decisive role throughout the public health crisis, and it is useful to offer a preliminary evaluation of it.
Composed of brilliant individuals and our best scientists, the Science Council—despite all the talent that it has included—has been one of the principal architects of the democratic debacle of the health crisis. And if there is a lesson to be drawn from this fiasco, it is that science should never be a substitute for politics and that political decisions cannot result simply from scientific expertise—at the risk of profoundly degrading our democracy.
