It is important to congratulate Pierre Hurmic, mayor of Bordeaux and president of the GSEF, for the remarkable organization of the forum, which allowed participants, over three days, to attend 13 plenary sessions and 169 round tables organized into 7 thematic tracks:
- Financing the transition: what tools can support the social and solidarity economy (SSE)?
- Acting for the ecological transition: energy, food, waste.
- Developing decent work: employment, democracy and inclusion.
- Doing things together: cooperation, territories and public action.
- Developing the power to act: autonomy for all.
- Caring: the SSE as a key actor in providing social services.
- Inventing a desirable future: innovation, impact and new narratives.
The social and solidarity economy does not occupy a negligible place in the world. In France, it has experienced undeniable growth over the past forty years and today includes 165,000 enterprises, comprising 154,000 employing associations, 8,700 cooperatives, 800 mutual societies, 500 foundations and around one hundred commercial companies. Between 2010 and 2018, 71,100 jobs were created by SSE enterprises, which now employ 2.4 million workers.
The social and solidarity economy operates on a model based on the principles of cooperation rather than competition, inclusion rather than exclusion, collective decision-making rather than authoritarian decision-making, and fair remuneration rather than increasingly unequal pay.
As Christian Sautter states in his latest “letter to our friends,” the SSE is “a human economy, where each worker can flourish, rather than an economy of Excel spreadsheets, where each worker is a number and whose labor is treated as a commodity whose cost must be minimized. As Pierre Hurmic said: ‘The Forum is not the anti-Davos. It is the post-Davos.’”
At the conclusion of its work, the Forum published a “Bordeaux GSEF 2025 Declaration,” which summarizes in three pages the universal ambition of this movement, complemented by a second “Declaration for Lasting Peace,” explaining that the SSE is a response to prevent the conflicts and major migrations that will be triggered by the greed of large capitalist firms, the folly of certain political leaders, and climate change, which generates tensions over water, food and energy. The Forum also published an “International Youth Declaration for the SSE.” It is the result of extensive preparation carried out in Africa (ABEWE in Côte d’Ivoire), Latin America (INAES in Mexico), Asia (Youth Hub in Seoul), North America (Youth Wing in Quebec) and Europe. It proclaims: “We, the youth of Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, are gathered in Bordeaux, united by our diversities and guided by a shared aspiration. Faced with the ecological, economic and democratic crises threatening our societies, we reject immobility and resignation. We choose the Social and Solidarity Economy as our common horizon: an economy that serves life, dignity and collective well-being.”
This is followed by a six-point call supported by concrete proposals: living with dignity; working differently; learning together; protecting living beings; participating fully; building peace among peoples.
Let us highlight three sentences from this inspiring text:
- “Learning is not limited to accumulating knowledge: it means building a critical perspective, developing civic skills and imagining tomorrow’s solutions together.”
- “Peace begins when everyone can live, engage and flourish within their community.”
- “Mobility must be a right, not a privilege.”
Issue No. 27 of Approches Cooperatives, to be published at the end of the year, will be entirely devoted to the seventh World SSE Forum in Bordeaux, with a selection of exclusive interviews, including one with Benoît Hamon, president of ESS France.
