Startup Nation, Overdose Bullshit

In this pamphlet, Arthur de Grave develops a funny and lively criticism of the current government, which seeks to consider France as a young, dynamic and ambitious company. He exposes the big tricks of this political project which takes itself very seriously and seeks to know what the reality of the Start-up Nation is, beyond the enthusiastic tweets and forums of which it is the subject. Because the worm is in the fruit: the ambassadors are invited to be “State contractors”. We are dematerializing all public services to the limit, we are forging partnerships with the Californian digital giants, with the idea that, to reconnect with profits, France would need to be coached by a Jeff Bezos or a Mark Zuckerberg, version 100% ENA. To put an end to such a balloon, Arthur de Grave returns to the history of this mythology, looking at how it was forged under other skies: in Israel – the first state to have claimed the title of “start-up nation or in Estonia – the land of unicorns such as Skype, Taxify or TransferWise. What if the Start-up Nation was nothing more or less than the vehicle of a propaganda discourse? A tearing to pieces of the concept of Start-up Nation, so dear to our current president.