(Paris) French President Emmanuel Macron and United States Vice President Kamala Harris will kick off the Paris Peace Forum on Thursday, dedicated this year to bridging global divides, with a big digital component.
Thirty heads of state and government are expected in person at this fourth annual meeting, originally wanted by Emmanuel Macron, which will be held until Saturday and will coincide with an international conference on Libya on Friday.
Several heads of state from sub-Saharan Africa (Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Senegal, Liberia, Botswana, etc.) will be present in particular, as will Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and the prime ministers of Serbia and Kosovo.
This Forum, created in 2018, aims to set up a regular meeting of world decision-makers in Paris like what is done in Davos in economic matters or in Munich on security issues, two very popular events at each start. year.
“The objective is to provide a platform where States but also other actors meet on many subjects such as climate, health, social and solidarity economy, digital issues”, explains the Director General of the Forum, Justin Vaïsse.
Leaders of international organizations (WHO, IMF, African Development Bank, etc.), NGOs and foundations (Melinda Gates, Georges Soros, etc.) will also participate in various panels scheduled over three days.
“American re-engagement”
“Multilateralism is struggling, we need all the forces that allow us to give a little international coordination, coherence and move forward on the issues that threaten us all,” notes Justin Vaïsse.
From this point of view, “the presence of Kamala Harris signals the re-engagement of the United States in multilateral issues after four years of boycott of the Paris Peace Forum by President Trump,” he said.
The COVID-19 pandemic has “considerably widened the North-South divide”, the East-West relations are also becoming very complicated again, hence the central theme of the forum on global divides.
Emmanuel Macron and Kamala Harris will officially open the Forum on Thursday at 5 p.m. (4 p.m. GMT), at the Grande Halle de la Villette (northeast of Paris), alongside Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina .
They will then attend a panel on the major global digital issues, which will take stock of a series of initiatives (Call from Paris, Christchurch, etc.) related to cybersecurity, the fight against terrorist and violent extremist content online or disinformation on social networks.
The Global Partnership for Artificial Intelligence (PMIA) will present on this occasion a report “on the responsible and ethical use” of these technologies, in the presence of the president of Microsoft Brad Smith.
“An effort of reflection”
This partnership, which brings together “exclusively democracies”, has 19 members (Canada, Japan, United States, European Union.) And intends to expand to Africa, Asia and Latin America, according to the Palace of the Elysee.
The leaders present will also look during this public panel – and no longer behind closed doors as initially mentioned – on the protection of minors online, with a call to action (“Call to Action”) and two scheduled follow-up meetings. in 2022.
Microsoft President Brad Smith, YouTOube CEO Susan Wojcicki, and Amazon VP Russell Grandinetti will be associated with these reflections, as will Justine Atlan, director of the Child Protection Association on the Internet E-Childhood.
The fight against disinformation and the regulation of debris in space, which clutters the low orbit, will also be at the heart of governance initiatives.
The Secretary General of Reporters Without Borders, Christophe Deloire, will present on Saturday the International Observatory on Information and Democracy, “equivalent for democratic deregulation of what the IPCC is for climate deregulation”.
For Bertrand Badie, professor of international relations at Sciences Po Paris, “the growing complexity and urgency” of international issues lead to this “multiplication of forums”, such as that of Paris or that of Normandy on Peace which was held. in early fall.
“It requires a whole effort of reflection, imagination, reinvention of concepts and confrontation of visions,” he told AFP.