14-1190b-innovation-managing-risk-evidence

3.3. The current difficulty faced by French society in
developing standards around socio-technical issues
The distrust of experts
The distrust, mentioned above, still applies also to the
experts and their institutions, nurtured by several cases that
remain in our memories:
• The contaminated blood case, in which there was a delay in
the implementation of safety measures.
• The radioactive clouds from the Chernobyl disaster that
‘did not stop at the French border’, their impact being
measurable, contrary to statements made by some French
senior officials at the time.
More recently, it appears clear that the debate on emerging
technologies is often brought before the courts and has
already led to several trials. Successive judgments of various
courts about the installation of relay antennas or the
uprooting of INRA grapevines demonstrate different kinds
of expertise coming not only from scientists but also from
civil society. For their decisions, elected officials, as well as
judges, take into account all these forms of expertise. On
the contrary, scientists are sometimes strongly challenged
in these debates because their analysis tends to exclude
any reference to values or perceptions that often guide
the expertise emanating from associations and civil society.
Public opinion is more and more concerned by conflicts of
interest.
Since the 1990s, France has set up several agencies and
dedicated expertise on risk. A wide range of sectors are
included:
• A food safety agency (founded in 1999 following the ‘mad
cow’ case and integrated in 2010 in ANSES, the French
Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health &
Safety)
• Medicines and health products (ANSM, the French
National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety)
• Nuclear safety (IRSN, the French national public expert in
nuclear and radiological risks)
• Industrial environment (INERIS, established by the French
Government in 1990 as the National Competence Centre
for Industrial Safety and Environmental Protection).
The action of these agencies has helped to popularize
the notion of expertise, to highlight the role of experts,
and to provide reports that help build trust and generate
constructive public debates and should be a possible way
ahead.
The development of scientific illiteracy in a context
of rising education
In a context of rising education levels in France (70% of
a given age group now holds the baccalauréat), scientific
expertise is in principle (and logically) questioned and
challenged during public debates. A new paradox has
however appeared: at the same time, the level of scientific
We are no longer in
an information deficit
modelin which it was
easy to blame the public
for not being informed
sufficiently to debate.
culture remains low in a great number of countries (two out
of five Americans do not believe in the theory of evolution; a
large majority of members in the US Republican Party does
not believe in the human source of climate change; most
French citizens turn off the lights as their main step in the
fight against climate change rather than turning down the
heat).
Marie-Françoise Chevallier – Le Guyader reminds us
that the notion of scientific illiteracy, which appeared in the
United States in the mid-1980s, is seen by some as “a social
and political danger affecting states whose development
is based on science and technology”. As she points out,
this danger may induce a new view of public debates, with
a negative answer as to their need! This challenge is even
greater in several cases in which some lobbies — the
merchants of doubt — are working to discredit scientific
messages or to delay any decision (including those of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC), focusing
heavily on the uncertainties linked to these decisions.
We are no longer in an information deficit model in which
it was easy to blame the public for not being informed
sufficiently to debate. We are facing a new paradigm:
scientific information is available but, in some cases, its
appropriation and full understanding by the public cannot
really be attained. During the debate, everyone is legitimately
concerned and gives his opinion, but an opinion is not a skill.
A major issue related to the issue of trust is to recognize
the specific skills of scientists and experts. Recent polls
show the current ambiguity of French citizen, who likes
scientists but who is less confident about their statements
about sensitive subjects, as well as in their institutions. They
tend to put more trust in associations and in NGOs.
The difficulty of French society holding real debates
Add to this the difficulty of French society to hold a real
debate, without even making reference to the “discourse
ethics” as stated by Habermas: public meetings more often
correspond to a succession of presentations and questions
from the audience rather than an exchange of arguments
on a subject which should enable a ‘co-built’ solution. Under
these conditions, Marie-Françoise Chevallier – Le Guyader
emphasizes the current difficulty faced by French society
in developing standards around socio-technical issues, the
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