Speech by Jean-Noël Barrot, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School (25 septembre 2025)
Harvard Kennedy School
Thursday, September 25, 2025
==INTRODUCTION==
I grew up in central France, on land ringed by old mountains and dormant volcanoes.
I grew up with the legend of a hero. A hero who was also born and raised on a land ringed by old mountains and sleeping volcanoes. A hero of two worlds. France and America.
Let me tell you his story.
He was raised by his mother and aunts. When he turned 19, he heard of bold men fighting for freedom and democracy on the other side of the Atlantic. He defied his boss, boarded a ship in Bordeaux, and landed in North Island near Georgetown, South Carolina. He stood shoulder to shoulder with the American Patriots. He fought amongst them. He became friends with George Washington. He bonded with Thomas Jefferson, who was writing the Declaration of Independence. Remember these words.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Our young man took these powerful words back to France. And three days before the Storming of the Bastille, he wrote the first draft of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen that said:
“Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of Man. These rights are Liberty, Property, Safety, and Resistance to Oppression.”
This is the story of Lafayette. This was 250 years ago. In fact, we are celebrating today, September 25th, the 249th anniversary of Congress decision to mandate Benjamin Franklin to negotiate a treaty with France to secure American independence.
The powerful words of Jefferson and Lafayette have survived the test of time.
So much so, that a century and a half later, the same story happened, but the other way around. On the full-moon night of June 6, 1944, thousands of young Americans boarded ships heading to the shores of Normandy where many of them would spill their blood.
To liberate France from oppression.
For the very same reason Lafayette had crossed the Atlantic in the first place.
So think for a minute. Ask yourself.
Why did these young men cross the Atlantic and risk everything? Why did they do it? What does it take?
It takes one simple idea. An idea that France and the United States have championed for over two centuries. An idea that has brought so much to the world and that holds in one single word.
Democracy.
Democracy as the vision of a society in which enlightened citizens decide for themselves.
Democracy as a fragile but incredibly powerful institutional framework resting on three pillars:
The first is fundamental rights – some rights are sacred.
The second is “one man, one vote” – law is made by the people for the people.
The third is the rule of law – everyone has equal rights, no one is above the law.
If all three principles hold, democracy will hold.
Should one be shaken, democracy will falter.
==PARTIE 1== POWER OF DEMOCRACY
But when democracy holds, it is indeed the most conducive institutional framework for prosperity, welfare, and peace.
That is not an opinion. This is a statement grounded in scientific research.
What does research tell us?
The world’s most cited economist, Harvard professor Andrei Shleifer has assembled a broad body of evidence that legal tradition is a key driver of development. He and his coauthors have shown that the rule of law yields stronger investor protections, deeper and broader capital markets, and—ultimately—higher economic growth. The intuition is simple: when private property is protected – when intellectual property is protected – entrepreneurs and innovators are incentivized to create value and push the knowledge frontier forward.
I just quoted a Harvard economist. I will avoid any diplomatic incident, and turn to an MIT economist who has had so much influence on my own research when I was a professor there. Nobel Laureate Daron Acemoglu. Daron and coauthors have shown that democracy does cause growth. Democratization raises GDP per capita by about 20% in the long run, driven by democracies’ greater investments in capital, education, and health. In groundbreaking work, Daron has also found that inclusive institutions – those that ensure broad participation and spread the dividends of growth – lie at the core of why some countries grow rich while others remain poor.
Some will say GDP is not a sufficient statistic for welfare. Fair point – so let’s look beyond GDP. Research published in The Lancet has shown that democracy has a positive causal effect on life expectancy. Controlling for other factors, adult life expectancy increases by about 3% over 10 years after a country transitions to democracy. Consistent with this is the negative correlation between democracy and infant mortality. Consistent with this is the positive correlation between democracy and subjective well-being, documented in many papers.
Democracy is conducive to prosperity. To welfare. And democracy is conducive to peace. No need to graduate from Harvard Kennedy School to spot the pattern: over the past 80 years, no mature democracy has gone to war with another. Most importantly, democracy provided the blueprint for the international order that raised from the ashes of World War II. Read the United Nations Charter, signed in San Francisco 80 years ago. You will hear the echoes of Lafayette and Jefferson.
You will see the three pillars of democracy– translated to the international level, and supporting a democracy of Nations:
The first is fundamental rights: territorial integrity and self-determination.
The second is “one nation, one vote”, with each country having the same share of power at the General Assembly.
The third is the rule of law, with the same rules applying to every Nation.
The number 1 purpose of the United Nations was to maintain international peace and security. Has it worked? Yes, it has!
The guiding principle of territorial integrity has made aggression costly for any state tempted to invade a neighbor. Not every conflict has been averted—far from it—but the mediating roles of the General Assembly and the Security Council have stopped many crises from sliding into full-blown wars.
Further, research has shown that the UN peacekeeping missions and other peacebuilding activities reduce violence, improve human rights, and create more stable post-conflict environments. They help prevent future conflicts, and they do so cost-effectively, strengthening global security.
Prosperity, welfare, peace. Democracy has brought so much to our civilization.
Yet wherever I look, fundamental rights are challenged, the rule of law is contested. Wherever I look, democracy is under fire.
==PARTIE 2== DEMOCRACY UNDER FIRE
And fire is set by enemies of democracy from the outside. Authoritarian regimes that fear democracy like vampires’ fear sunlight. They know that democracy is contagious. They fear it like a deadly virus. Nothing worries them more than its spreading to them. They will do whatever it takes to stop it—brute force, blackmail, disinformation, election manipulation. When democracy gets to close to their borders, they will do anything to prevent this from happening it.
And they have a very simple playbook. The script is always the same. No need to study political science at Harvard to figure it out. Everything lies in the scenario of Star Wars. When Darth Sidious, the dark lord of the Sith, turns the galaxy from democracy to dictatorship in four easy and replicable steps. And a red lightsaber.
- Step one: identify a proxies, disguise yourself as a senator from within.
- Step two: foster a fake internal separatist threat.
- Step three: get rid of the Jedi Order, the ultimate counter-power.
- Step four: declare the end of the Republic and the advent of the Empire “for the sake of security.
Fortunately, the return of the Jedi puts an end to all this. Restores balance to the force. But this scenario is not one of fiction.
Look at Vladimir Putin. The true reason behind his colonial wars—Georgia in 2008, Ukraine since 2014—is simple: democracy. The sovereign and legitimate choice of Georgians and Ukrainians to turn toward Europe threatened democratic contagion to the Russian sphere of influence. So, he staged fake separatist fronts to justify breaking international law. He launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He tried to manipulate elections in Germany, Romania, and Moldova. He now tries to intimidate supporters of Ukraine by tempering with their borders and violating his success.
Has he succeeded? No.
Will he? Certainly not.
Poutine is failing to make progress on the ground just like he is failing to make progress in the spirits.
Why? Because democracy is an idea. An idea cannot be bombed. It cannot be destroyed with Shahed drones.
Beyond Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is targeting the European Union itself with sabotage, cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, assassination attempts. Why ? Because the EU is a genuine democratic project. Perhaps the most democratic project of all times. He hates it, and he hates what it represents. And he’s not alone.
By the way: some dare say that freedom of speech is bounded in Europe.
Europe invented freedom of speech.
I can confirm that the French government is not spared by public scrutiny. Criticizing the government is a national sport. So if you worry about free speech in Europe. Try it the Russian way instead, and let me know what you think.
The battlefield for democracy has not only shifted in recent years, it has expanded into new domains, including so-called social networks. The forces that want to bring democracy down have spread and gained the high ground in the information space. By spreading fake new from the outside to polarize public debate, they are attempting to weaken democracy from within.
“A lie travels half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes”, Mark Twain said.
We cannot let that happen. Europe will never let go of the rules we have adopted democratically and sovereignly to preserve freedom of speech while preventing foreign interference to break down democratic debate.
Everywhere I look, I see assaults from within. I see political movements with authoritarian purposes gaining ground. From within democracies. Mature democracies across Europe and North America.
The ultimate goal of these political forces is clearcut: capturing power from within. And set the conditions not to give it back. Here again, there is a playbook, a script.
Brakes are broken. Limits are tested. Alignments with foreign authoritarian forces emerge. Principles of international law are contested. Force becomes a substitute to the law. Audacity outruns accountability.
Reason gives way to emotions. Politics is turned into a permanent theater of outrage. Emotions are weaponized to amplify anger and fear. Propaganda is laundered through “private” proxies. Political campaigns are drenched in disinformation, powered by AI. The goal is not persuasion but exhaustion.
Dissent is outcast. Opponents, NGOs, and civil rights defenders can hear the knock at the door: raids, lawsuits, intimidation dressed up as public order. Free speech is bounded.
Compliance is sold as civic duty. Data are erased. Research topics are forbidden. Subsidies are cut for projects that don’t align with official narratives. Traditional press is squeezed, and reporters are harassed.
Vote is tilted. Violence licks at the edges of polling stations. Candidates are struck from ballots. Election results are contested in spectacular outburst of violence targeting core democratic institutions.
Separation of power is questioned. Executive power swells. The law is bent. Judges are replaced or cowed. Courts are leaned on. Anti-corruption bodies are gutted. Turned, like knives, against critics.
And finally, submission is rewarded above merit. Contracts and tax breaks for friends; choke points for dissenters. Innovation withers, and in the silence that follows, repression grows tall.
Down this road lies a darker claim. Ending what is described by some as a failed 200-year experiment. Replace democracy with a “CEO-monarchy”. Far, very far from what Jefferson and Lafayette had in mind.
Some will say I’m being dramatic. That we are still a long way from all this. No, we are not. Popular support for democracy has never been so low.
Last year, The Economist’s Democracy Index fell again to the weakest score ever. The rise in dissatisfaction has been especially sharp since 2005. And this trend has been particularly severe in developed democracies.
Hence the most important question of our time:
Why is democracy losing its momentum? Why are its enemies making so much progress?
==PARTIE 3== DEMOCRATIC FATIGUE
The answer to this question holds in two words: democratic fatigue.
Citizens in mature democracies grow frustrated, jaded, exhausted, disappointed. Trust is eroding, the civic heartbeat is dimming. Power to the people sounds like an echo instead of a call.
Democratic fatigue.
The feeling that citizens are not being heard. That the issues they care about never get addressed. That a distant elite—in Paris or in DC—decides for them without accountability.
The feeling that democratic government is failing to deliver. That it’s breaking its promise—of freedom, security, self-fulfillment. The sense that we are paying more and getting less. That public services are underperforming. That red tape blurs who does what. And to the kitchen-table question “Will my kids be better off than me?”, the answer is no longer “yes”.
The feeling that democracy doesn’t shield us from global disruptions. The China shock destroyed millions of jobs and left entire regions of Europe and North America bleeding. Beijing’s policies swelled U.S. household debt and cast a shadow over American jobs. Meanwhile, deep shifts in family structures and rising immigration transformed our societies, fueling anxieties that democracy has struggled to address. Digitalization and automation split labor markets and hollowed out the middle class. People feel left to pick up the pieces—alone.
The feeling that democracy is no longer striking the subtle balance between individual autonomy and common purpose that is the necessary condition of self-fulfillment. Paradoxically, we have grown to lack both of them. We lack autonomy as we feel hindered in our day to day lives, as we suffer from restrictions to our ability to choose, to decide, to act. We lack common purpose as we no longer feel drawn into endeavors greater than ourselves.
And finally, what may be the worst feeling of all: the feeling of injustice and frustration materialist societies generate, despite the unprecedented welfare we live in compared to the overwhelming majority of the world population.
This democratic fatigue didn’t appear by accident. To a large extent, it is our own responsibility.
It is the result of decades of elite blindness to a world in upheaval. Denial of the legitimate wrath of the middle-class and the working-class, tired of feeling looked down upon and pushed aside. Failure of traditional political forces to sketch a new horizon, to meet that anger with answers. For years now, traditional political forces in the U.S. and in Europe—have let our institutions drift until we, the people, have felt dispossessed of power. The greater threat ahead of us is popular resignation.
And let’s face it. Democratic fatigue is also the result of the grip we have let so-called social media take upon our lives. A business model design to drain cerebral bandwidths and exploit personal data to breed advertising revenues. Algorithmic filters that segregate people into distinct bubbles. Citizens turned into eye balls, followers, users. Public space privatization for the purpose of paying dividends.
Faced with such fatigue, many will be tempted to give up. To give up on Lafayette and Jefferson’s legacy.
To concede to Neoreaction, to Dark Enlightenment, to CEO-monarchy.
We won’t. We will resist—and we’ll fix democracy.
==PARTIE 4== FIXING DEMOCRACY
Fixing democracy starts with fixing citizenship. Raising genuine citizens. Enlightened citizens, able and willing to take responsibility for themselves and for others.
How do we get there? With a great deal of enlightenment, empowerment, and courage.
First, enlightenment. Veritas, as they say in Harvard.
For “power to the people” only works if people are properly informed. If not, they are bound to err in the dark. How can we have a productive debate if we cannot agree on facts? If polarized factions fight over fake news on social networks? If “truth” is being engineered for political purpose?
Enlightenment starts in the classroom, and continues here at Harvard, in universities, where professor dedicate their lives to better understanding the world. And to sharing the breadth of their knowledge to their students.
Today, science is questioned. Science is mistrusted. Science is politicized. Yet to raise citizens, we need more research. More academic freedom. More science, not less. Free and open science. We need the competitive emulation of a vibrant academic community. We need the tough discipline of peer review. We need policy evaluation.
So yes we stand!
We stand with free spirits who dream beyond limits. With faculty and students who dare.
We stand with universities facing the threat of government control, restriction to their funding, constraints on their curricula or research projects.
We stand with students, here at Harvard. And elsewhere.
Enlightenment also rests on free press. Journalists that feel independent enough to report on what they see. Reporters free from editorial pressure or political constraint. Media with resources to investigate and reveal inconvenient truths.
So yes we stand!
We stand with fact checkers, whistleblowers, with journalists and who dare.
We stand with independent media striving to do their work.
We stand with those fighting for information integrity.
Fixing citizenship also requires empowerment.
Democratic fatigue can lead to democratic backsliding. When the system seems broken, some start asking: why not try another one. Why not concentrate power in fewer hands ?
The antidote to this, the only alternative to power concentration is power redistribution. Power back to the people.
Start with a full reset of who does what. Public sector, private sector. Federal government, local government. Government, agencies. The guiding principle should be subsidiarity. Allocate power where it is exercised most. The goal should be to unleash energy. To give each person the means to steer their own life. Open new paths for passion and talent.
Continue with giving more agency to everyone, in all dimensions of their life. People are craving to make their own choices. People no longer want to vote on a platform every four or five years and have no say in between. Let them participate more actively in policy making. France has experimented citizens assemblies on topics like climate change or end of life care. This is a promising path. Other countries have built digital tools to consult people on a more regular basis. To leverage the wisdom of the crowds. We need continuous citizen participation. They need to be actors, not spectators.
Enlightenment and empowerment are necessary conditions to fix democracy. But they won’t be enough unless we restore courage.
In 1978, Alexander Solzhenitsyn delivered the commencement address, here at Harvard. A powerful speech in which he criticized western democracies for their loss of civic courage. Their inability to confront major challenges. He blamed the passivity of the elite, the focus on material comfort, and the spiritual decay. He coined this the decline in courage. He was right.
We need to restore courage.
Courage to place values above interests.
Courage to carry one’s share of collective burdens, with no certainty that others will do so. Even if others freeride. Above all, if others freeride.
Courage to embrace the spiritual dimension of life and resist the temptation of comfort.
Courage to look at the world with the eyes wide open and be ready to make difficult decisions when they arise.
Courage not to concede to instant pressure, but focus on the right thing to do.
“And this you can know – fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe” can one read in the Grapes of Wrath.
Democracy can be fixed, in France, like in the U.S., if we really want it.
Fixing democracy is all about citizens. The making of men and women who listen and debate, vote with clear judgment, hold leaders to account, and step forward for the common good.
Enlightenment, empowerment, and courage are the key.
We are the key.
Dear students from Harvard,
At this moment of your life, as you are considering your options for what comes next,
You are facing a decision :
What citizens will you be?
Will you be spectators, or actors?
Will you stand for democracy?
When addressing Congress in 1824, Lafayette said that the U.S. “stand as a lesson to oppressors, an example to the oppressed, and a sanctuary for the rights of mankind.”
May we live up to the legacy of Jefferson and Lafayette.
May we be inspired by the courage of Lafayette when he sailed to America. The courage of those who landed on the shores of Normandy. Of those around the world who are risking everything for freedom and democracy.
We owe it to them, we owe it to ourselves. We owe it to the generations to come.