A seminar on the future of Aube and Haute-Marne to mark the 1-year anniversary of Business Sud Champagne

To celebrate its first year of existence, Business Sud Champagne organized a seminar with around twenty of its ambassadors, featuring Pierre Veltz, an urban planner and economist who recently published his book ‘La France des territoires, défis et promesses’ (France’s Territories: Challenges and Promises).

The presence of Pierre Veltz at this meeting had three specific objectives: to observe, to provoke thought, and to inspire action. To achieve these goals, Pierre Veltz conveyed several strong messages, such as his belief that there is no general deindustrialization, and that discouragement and people’s tendency to ‘complain’ are currently the only handicaps of territories and the only point of differentiation from metropolises.

According to the economist, the South Champagne territory has everything it needs to compete with major metropolises; it just needs to learn how to use the tools at its disposal. He identified three success factors: entrepreneurship, collective performance, and quality of life. These three aspects are found throughout the South Champagne territory, thanks to structures that promote entrepreneurship (e.g., the technopole), strong cohesion among different companies to support industries, and housing that is 40% cheaper than in Paris. South Champagne possesses a strong identity thanks to its greenery, heritage, champagne, textile industry, and industrial potential, which must be harnessed.

This meeting thus provided an interesting assessment of the territory’s strengths and set a primary objective for the future: learning how to leverage them.