[MUSIC] Espace Mondial. What does it mean? This is as you know, a French word. It's also a course, which has been offered to the students of the French Institute of SciencePo, the famous and the well-known French institute, where trained so many French politicians. It's possible there I keep the French word, because I would like to designate something A little bit different from what is currently offered in the American or British or many European universities. Of course, this course is very close to global studies. That's to say global vision of our world, which tries to go further to go beyond the classic vision of interstate relations, but it's Espace Mondial as also a French touch. That's to say the French vision, which is coming the French culture and French history on what the world is now. This is implying new perspectives and also new context. New perspective, as to say global studies and here Espace Mondial will prompt us to reconsider action, to reconsider identity, to reconsider space and territory, to reconsider the main dimensions of our world. To reconsider action, first of all. It's not possible now in our present world to conceive an action, even local action without situating it in a global context. That's to say, the decision making process even at individual level is quite different from the traditional perspective we had about it. But it implies also that the world order is mainly made of billions of individual actions of so many Interactions between individual actors or groups, that's to say in our world, we have presently 7 billion actors. That's to say, we can't. Consider the world from the initiatives taken by the only states. That implies also that we have to move to the known state actors, NGOs, multinational corporations, media and so many aggregated transnational actors, migrants or investors and so on. So action does not mean what it did mean previously, but new perspective is also a new vision of identity. We are now in a world of plural, volatile identities. We are in a world in which the national commitment is no more the main parameter of the international decision and the international behavior of people. We are in a world in which alterity has a very complex meaning. That's to say, we have now to define the others and the others are not only friends or enemies are no more the citizens of the same country and the citizens of other countries. We have so many transnational flows that Identities are crossing. Identities are more and more complex and made of different kinds of and commitments. New perspective, it means also a new vision of space and territory. Previously, it was very easy to consider the world as made of the coexistence of nation states. We are now in a world, which is more complex. First of all, because border lines are not so efficient as they were before. And so there are many transnational relations, which are ignoring borderlines. That's why the territorial sovereignty that existed previously, doesn't exist as it was before. And also, we are observing so many regional integration processes in Europe, Latin America, Africa and so on. And so what the famous Japanese scholar Kenichi Ohmae called Region States is one of the parameters of the very complex territorial order of our world. That's to say, now we have transnational integration, regional integrations, but also local spaces, which are getting more and more important and more and more relevant. We are in a local world, that's why space is something difficult. That I tried to express through this world of Espace Mondial. And also, we have among these new perspectives to consider the multiple dimensions of our world. Do you know that every 2 hours, 2,800 people die of starvation in the world? That's to say, the equivalent of eight World Trade Center attacks every day. This is a fundamental parameter of our new world. This is a new dimension. Consider, for instance, that the football club, Manchester United has a budget of 1400 billion Euros when the FIO, which is specialized as you know for covering starvation in the world has a budget, which is limited 2,600 millions. Consider that the American attack on Iraq costed $1,000 billion when the budget of the DPKO, that's to say the department of the united nation, which is specialized in peacekeeping as yearly budget of only $7 billion. That's to say that the dimensions of our world and of the intuition action are very diversified and that we have to consider all these discrepancies as one of the main parameters of our Espace Mondial. New perspectives, but also new intelligent contacts. I'm a particle scientist, but however, I know now that for observing the world and the Espace Mondial, I have to modernize the knowledge, which has been shaped by so many social sciences. It is impossible to have recurring vision of the world without taking into account economies, history, sociology, law, geography, anthropology and so on. Of course, I'm not a specialist of all these disciplines, but my attempt is to consider the results of my colleagues in different fields and to make sense of things I will offer you during all these lectures. We have now to stand transdisciplinary behavior, vision for taking into account our present Espace Mondial. The other new context is universalism. All of us and especially among Western people, we are convinced that we are bringing universality. Of course, many human values are universal, but no one in the world invented universality. Universality's also made of plurality and we have to consider this plural vision of the world for explaining, war, power, peace and so on. This implies to go back to comparison. These lectures will stress on comparison as the main way for addressing our world for explaining the social and prodigal processes and also to offer very modestly, some solutions. And true in your context is we are in a world of mobility. The global world implies a mobile world. That's to say through immigration, but also through circulation of information, of ideas. And overall, by multiple interactions, inter-playing between actors. This mobility is at the core of this new vision of the world. This is a French thought. Of course, this French thought, as we will see together is not so different from the others. But the specificity of this MOOC is to offer you a vision, which has been shaped through the long particle and history of France. But ladies and gentleman, I am not a native of an English speaking country. I am A French man and so I will use the English language for trying to get in touch with you. Please forgive me for my bad English, but the main perspective is to get in touch with you and that is the real project of our MOOC. [MUSIC]
