I have not posted for a while because nothing felt important enough to write about. That changed when two things caught my attention.

First, Pascal Canfin launched Les Progressistes. This initiative aims to shape a vision for France’s centrist movement. I joined the discussions and suggested topics based on my earlier reflections. Over the coming weeks, I plan to share some of those thoughts here.

Second, the Montaigne Institute published its 2040 Forecast. It lists thirteen trends that will shape France in the coming years. Some of these trends made me stop and think. Here are a few:

The price of electricity and its effect on competitiveness

• The decline of productivity in France
• The financing of pensions
• How people save and use their savings
• Falling levels of education proficiency
• Transport and the role of cars outside large cities
• The growing number of rules and laws

The first issue, energy, is already part of European plans like the EU Green Deal and Repower Europe. The second issue, productivity, made me question how we talk about numbers.

Politicians and managers talk about productivity all the time. We often hear people say, “France is falling behind” or “We work less than Germany.” These statements sound clear, but what do they really mean? How do we measure productivity? Even at work, when we discuss efficiency or output, I often doubt what the numbers tell us. People like simple KPIs, but these figures rarely tell the whole story.

Why do we focus so much on productivity? What do these numbers actually reveal about a country or a company?

I prefer to step back and ask how things really work. For example, how does our economy or organisation function? Are people valued and paid fairly? Do they understand how their work helps the whole? Are we investing in the right areas so we can stay competitive and sustainable?

A single KPI cannot answer these questions. Often, the numbers hide real changes. A company may hire more managers and win a new contract at no extra cost. The productivity figure will barely change, but something important has happened.

Some groups try to take a wider view. The Beyond GDP initiative includes unpaid work, informal sectors and environmental effects. But we must still break down the numbers. If we only look at totals, we miss the reasons behind changes. We also miss the real structure of an economy or organisation.

This is why many political debates feel shallow. When I joined the first video call of Les Progressistes, I quickly saw that most people wanted to talk about visible issues, like social media use by young people. Few wanted to talk about deeper, structural problems. Without agreement on the causes, how can we agree on the solutions? Without a shared diagnosis, how can we treat the illness?

KPIs can help, but they stay simple. People can also twist them to support almost any argument. Take productivity as an example. It is just GDP divided by total working hours. We can change the numerator or the denominator, but what about the consequences? What happens if we turn more parts of life into market activities just to make the figure rise? Do we want a society where every interaction feels like a transaction? Are we only about markets, or do we also care about community and human connection?

Chasing numbers can change a society’s values. It can reduce solidarity and make us see each other as economic units instead of as people.

Instead of accepting figures at face value, I ask “why” several times when someone presents a solution or a statistic. I also look for what lies behind the numbers and check how they connect with my values and the values of the societies I belong to.

What about you?