Interview with Marie-Pierre de Bailliencourt

Understanding the world to decide better: Geopolitics in the service of business strategy

You are a member of the Advisory Board of EDHEC's Chair in Geopolitics and Business Strategy. Why did you accept this role, and how relevant do you see this kind of structure being for a business school?

I accepted because I believe that, more than ever, we need systemic thinking today. The world has become extremely complex: interdependencies are multiplying, crises spread from one domain to another, and the balance of power is shifting rapidly. Without a geopolitical reading of events, decision-makers risk accumulating blind spots that prevent them from truly understanding what is at stake.

A company carries a vision, an ambition and a project. To build that vision and execute it, it is essential to understand its environment: identifying weak signals, anticipating major shifts in international relations, analyzing power dynamics, and gauging both opportunities and threats.

Training future leaders without giving them these interpretive keys would deprive them of an essential part of their decision-making capacity. Geopolitics is not merely a backdrop that companies must adapt to. It has become a structuring element of their strategy. That is precisely what makes a Chair like EDHEC's so relevant within a business school.

Ahead of the next presidential election, the Institut Montaigne published its France 2040 report, a forward-looking study emphasizing the need for courageous trade-offs and clear public policy. Do you think geopolitics will be an important topic in the next presidential campaign? And do you believe France currently has a sufficiently clear international policy?

Geopolitics should naturally be at the heart of the presidential debate. A head of state's first responsibility is to ensure the nation's security, prosperity and stability. Today, all three of those objectives depend directly on international developments.

Recent conflicts have shown how immediately geopolitical crises affect everyday life in France. The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, and China's growing economic power all have a direct impact on energy prices, supply chains, business competitiveness and, more broadly, public finances. No credible presidential platform can now ignore these realities. The budget question is itself a major illustration of this: defense spending will continue to weigh heavily on states' financial trajectories. But geopolitics is not limited to military issues — it also encompasses economic security, foreign policy, relations between France and the European Union, and national resilience. These topics will inevitably shape political choices in the years ahead.

That said, French foreign policy currently lacks clarity. France finds itself at a turning point, caught between the legacy of its historical role in the world and the need to redefine its position in a profoundly transformed environment. Three broad orientations coexist today. The first is to maintain a diplomacy grounded in universalism, the defense of human rights and the role of a balancing power. The second favors the European project and the building of genuine continental sovereignty. The third rests more on a pragmatic logic: defending French interests wherever they lie, whether in the Indo-Pacific or through strategic partnerships with countries like Japan or Canada. These orientations are not necessarily incompatible, but they require clear prioritization. In foreign policy, ambiguity ultimately weakens a country's credibility. France's partners sometimes struggle to understand what notions such as "strategic autonomy" or "balancing power" actually cover. It has therefore become essential to commit to a coherent line, even if every choice also implies giving something up.

What do you see as the major geopolitical trends of the century ahead?

Three major dynamics are already taking shape.

The first is the return of power politics and hegemonic ambitions. The rivalry between the United States and China has become the structuring axis of the international order. This competition goes well beyond the military sphere, shaping trade flows, value chains, technological innovation and diplomatic balances.

The second trend is the growing weaponization of every form of interdependence. Natural resources, supply chains, international law, standards, technology and trade flows are all becoming levers of coercion. States are now mobilizing all of these tools as instruments of power, whether through the extraterritorial reach of their laws, economic sanctions, or control over strategic resources.

Finally, conflicts are increasingly hybrid, driven by new technologies. The traditional line between war and peace is becoming blurred. Disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks, manipulation of energy prices and pressure on critical infrastructure are now added to conventional military means.

This evolution comes with a considerable acceleration in the pace of crises. Artificial intelligence, robotics, drones, quantum technologies and nanotechnologies are fueling a new arms race — one measured not just in tanks or missiles, but in technological capability. We are, in effect, building a new strategic grammar whose rules have yet to be written. International law itself is struggling to keep pace with this acceleration, creating a particularly deep period of uncertainty.

Do the new international balances of power also require companies to make "courageous trade-offs"?

I wouldn't call them "courageous trade-offs," because making trade-offs is simply the nature of running a business. Leading an organization means constantly making choices: investing, hiring, developing a market, reorganizing a value chain, or accepting certain risks over others.

The real shift lies elsewhere — in the relationship to risk and the speed of decision-making. Companies now have much less time to anticipate disruptions. Crises follow one another, uncertainty has become permanent, and exceptional events are becoming the norm. Where companies once managed either long-term trends or occasional crises, they must now operate in an environment where volatility is constant.

The real challenge, then, is less about showing courage than about accepting a higher level of risk and being able to make decisions much more quickly. Leaders need to internalize this new pace and adapt their decision-making processes to a world where balances can shift within weeks, or even days.

In this context, the ability to anticipate geopolitical risk becomes a major competitive advantage. It is no longer a one-off forward-looking exercise, but a permanent strategic capability.

In the France 2040 report, you describe an international stage made up of flexible, informal alliances of convenience, with the American alliance system presented as the exception — durable and lasting. Do you still think that holds true? Hasn't the Trump administration lastingly weakened that system?

I think we need to be wary of reading things too much through the lens of the moment. International alliances have always rested on calculations of interest, not on emotional or ideological considerations. That was true yesterday, and it still is today.

For decades, the United States had an obvious strategic interest in guaranteeing Europe's security: containing the Soviet Union, maintaining its leadership within NATO, and supporting its own defense industry. Today, its priorities are shifting, but that shift didn't start with Donald Trump. The "pivot to Asia" was launched under Barack Obama. For more than twenty years, the United States has made clear that its main strategic challenge is now China and the Indo-Pacific region. Donald Trump hasn't really changed the substance of this strategy; he has mostly changed its form. His style is blunter, more direct, sometimes more destabilizing, but the shift in American policy runs much deeper in time.

Alliances, moreover, are becoming increasingly flexible. Take Turkey: a NATO member that criticizes certain American operations while buying Russian defense systems. That illustrates well how states ultimately pursue their own interests above all.

What we're really witnessing is a classic pattern in the history of international relations. Great empires go through cycles of rising power, stabilization and then realignment. We are currently in a new phase of that global rebalancing.

A year ago, at the EDHEC Vox Dialogues, you spoke of a Europe engaged in a genuine "economic war." How has the European Union evolved since then? How do you view the EU today as a geopolitical actor?

The European Union is evolving. But too slowly, given the speed at which the world is changing. I'd happily describe it as a teenager still looking for its place. Europe is torn between several models: should it remain, above all, a trading power? Should it become a military power? Strengthen its diplomacy? Or combine all of these dimensions? This question is made even harder by the fact that it has to be settled among twenty-seven states whose national interests are increasingly diverging. The Baltic and Nordic countries don't share the same concerns as southern Europe, Germany sometimes moves ahead alone on certain issues, and so on. In this context, the Union still struggles to define its true political center of gravity.

This hesitation also runs through current economic debates, such as the one pitting Made in Europe against Made with Europe. Behind that formula lies a fundamental question: does Europe genuinely want to reindustrialize its territory, or does it prefer to keep relying heavily on outside partners, particularly Chinese ones?

And yet, the Union already has a wide range of instruments of power. The European Commission holds significant tools when it comes to economic security, intellectual property protection or trade coercion. But it still uses them very cautiously. And this new form of conflict is, above all, a matter of speed. Technologies are evolving extremely fast, and programs designed on a ten- or fifteen-year horizon can become obsolete before they're even implemented. Faced with this acceleration, European procedures remain too slow and too complex.

In this economic war, Europe today is more on the receiving end than driving events.

According to the report, the European Union will likely have integrated Ukraine, or be well on its way to doing so, by 2040. Beyond the military and geographical implications, what would be the main consequences for European businesses?

When we wrote the report, we tried to project forward the trends observable at the time. Since then, the context has changed considerably, which points to an essential truth: in today's world, the most important quality is the ability to adapt.

Ukraine's accession raises very concrete questions today for European businesses.

On one hand, there is a strong moral case in favor of integration. On the other, a more realistic reading raises questions about its economic consequences. Ukraine has lower labor costs and less stringent standards, which could accelerate certain relocation trends within the European market itself.

In addition, new commercial opportunities would remain relatively limited given the current standard of living of the Ukrainian population. Finally, a significant share of the country's strategic assets is already under strong American influence, a direct consequence of the support provided since the start of the conflict.

The European Union built its development on a logic of gradual economic convergence among its members and on the idea that trade produces peace. That approach is increasingly being questioned today. Before considering a new enlargement, the Union should probably first manage to consolidate its own functioning. At twenty-seven members, it already struggles to make certain decisions. We're increasingly seeing the emergence of the idea of a Europe operating through variable coalitions, where five or six states move forward together on certain issues without waiting for unanimity.

Personally, I don't think Ukraine's integration is desirable under current conditions. But that decision will ultimately be a trade-off between moral considerations and strategic interests — and that trade-off belongs, first and foremost, to political leaders.

Do you think it would make sense to create a Chief Geopolitical Officer position within companies?

I understand the idea and I find the debate interesting, but I'm not in favor of it. The main risk would be to suggest that geopolitics is the responsibility of one designated expert, when it should actually run through the entire organization.

Today, a CFO is already doing geopolitics when assessing currency risk or exposure to an international crisis. A chief procurement officer does the same when diversifying suppliers. Strategy, foresight, insurance and operations teams already factor geopolitical parameters into their decisions on a daily basis. Creating a Chief Geopolitical Officer role would risk letting other functions off the hook. The head of strategy might start to feel that geopolitical analysis is no longer their concern; procurement might wait for recommendations before securing supply; other departments might gradually outsource a responsibility that should remain collective.

To my mind, the real answer is to spread a genuine geopolitical culture across the executive committee. Every member of the COMEX should factor geopolitical risk into their own decisions. The leader's role is then to orchestrate these different analyses in order to reach an informed decision. In that sense, a good business leader can no longer afford to ignore geopolitics today: it has become a management skill, not an isolated area of expertise.

For certain crisis situations, project teams or specialized advisors can naturally be brought in. But in my view, this isn't a standalone profession destined to become a permanent function on the org chart.

For someone who wants to discover or deepen their understanding of geopolitics, which books, authors, films, documentaries or podcasts would you recommend?

I would first recommend going back to the great classics. Geopolitics is built on a solid grounding in history and geography. Biographies and memoirs are particularly interesting, because they show how decision-makers act under real constraints. Among the essential authors, I'd mention Raymond Aron, Fernand Braudel and Jean Gottmann in particular. Geography is always right. On the contemporary side, I appreciate the interventions of Alain Juillet, which offer a different perspective and stimulate reflection.

But above all, there is no single "ideal library" for geopolitics. It is, first and foremost, a state of mind. I'd recommend looking at maps just as much as reading books: understanding flows — of goods, capital, information, technology, and so on — often helps grasp power dynamics more clearly; understanding other cultures helps free oneself from one's own assumptions and think more intelligently about what one proposes. Geopolitics is, above all, the study of the interactions and decisions that shape the world. From these fundamentals, everyone can then form their own interpretation of international developments.