Democracy in crisis: ex French top diplomat Hubert Védrine sees world order under threat

In the 1980s and 90s when Hubert Védrine served as a foreign policy advisor to France's President François Mitterrand, and later as Foreign Affairs minister from 1997 to 2002, the world was going through tumultuous times. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the apparent end of the Cold War upended the post-WWII geopolitical order and caused a fundamental reset in global relations. As a leading diplomat Védrine was part of international efforts to chart a course through the chaos and gained a profound insight into the challenges entailed in the quest for peace and stability around the world; insight which he agreed to share with Euronews.

Decades on and the question of global governability persists. Sergio Cantone began by asking Védrine if, in the turmoil of 2024, we are witnessing the end of a global political and economic order.

"Overall, there has never really been world order," Védrine says. "In fact, there has always been world disorder. But there have been times when there have been powers that have managed to dominate the system. After the Second World War, it was the Americans who organised the aftermath, very well indeed. It was one of the rare moments when a dominant power managed to combine national interests, which are the case for all powers, with a kind of more general vision.

"Then there was the Cold War, which was quite stable, by the way, and we understood. There was the East, the West and the South, the famous Third World. And then, when the Soviet Union disappeared, there was a surge of enthusiasm, of triumphalism in the West, with a slightly nationalistic form in the United States: “We've won, we're the masters!” Now we're back to classic geopolitics: the strength of the United States, the strength