By affirming the principle of the people’s sovereignty through a community of free subjects, advocating the liberation of the individual through education, and denouncing the indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources, Jean-Jacques Rousseau helped to set the coordinates of modern politics. His thinking could not have been closer to today’s concerns.

The climate crisis, a lack of equal opportunity, erosion of democracy through technological change, social exclusion, the restriction of individual and collective freedoms in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic: at a time when our society is threatened, it is urgent that we invent a new paradigm for tomorrow, a social contract for the 21st century.

We are living in times of great upheaval. Famines, floods, fires, heat waves: the catastrophic effects of climate change threaten our very existence. Poverty, war, violence, and discrimination continue to deprive millions of their most basic rights to health, food, security, and education. With the rise of populism and of cultural isolationism, more and more people are turning away from the values of trust and solidarity that bind humanity together. The democratic challenges, present and future, are certainly numerous.