The idea today is to try to give a vision of this world which is indeed chaotic and complicated lately. History is not linear, it stagnates and then accelerates. At the moment, it is accelerating extremely brutally.

There is no doubt that what has happened this year with the war in Ukraine is a change of era. It is a change of strategic era with the return of war to Europe. An open war in Ukraine, but also a hybrid war involving energy, food, cyber, manipulation of migrants, intervention in our election systems as well as the support of extremist parties.

We are living today in a very particular situation because the world has experienced many shocks but this is the first time we have this combination of crises (energy, food, economic, health and geopolitical). This geopolitical crisis is very important, including for the hospitality sector, because we are moving from an open society in the 21st century to a system that is reconfiguring itself into blocks with more and more closed countries. China is closed for reasons of 0 covid, but behind this are political reasons specific to Chinese totalitarianism. Russia is obviously closed for strategic reasons. These shocks have a strong impact on us as Europeans because Europe is on the front line.

I would like to start by looking at this very singular situation, which I would call "a strange crisis". Indeed, the macro-economic environment is deteriorating very quickly, but on the other hand, from a micro-economic point of view, things are apparently going rather well, particularly in the hospitality sector. Secondly, I would like to remind you why this period is a moment of truth that forces nations and companies to try to make their choices and to chart their course in a complicated world.

The...