Why Macron is reading sci-fi thrillers to prepare for the wars of the future

“Chronicle of a Cultural Death Foretold” is set in the near future. The Armed Forces need to evacuate French and European citizens from Grande-City after rumours spread of a biological attack on high schools. The pathogen is a type of coronavirus that causes severe respiratory problems and sepsis.  

But the soldiers face a challenge they couldn’t have seen coming. In this sci-fi world, citizens have divided themselves into communities, or ‘safe spheres’, based on what they want to see, hear and believe.  

“You have communities structured around a deliberate refusal to see certain parts of reality, to the point where if you refuse to see something, it no longer exists for you,” explains Virginie Tournay, who co-wrote the story. “Vegans can choose not to see plates with meat on them, or even butcher shops in the street.” 

It’s the perfect terrain for the enemy to carry out a mass disinformation campaign. Bombarded by fake news, some safe spheres start to distrust the Armed Forces’ evacuation efforts. The French soldiers are disoriented, and their internal cohesion begins to break down.  

“Today, fake news is everywhere. The fact that there are groups who adhere to fake news is a reality,” says Virginie Tournay. “But up until now we hadn’t pushed the issue to the extreme, whereby there are communities structured around alternative realities based not just on fake news, but on personal preferences. Here, reality and virtual reality are completely confused.” 

Sci-fi and France’s next military budget 

France’s lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, will vote on Wednesday June 7th on the next military budget, which envisages an increase to €413 billion from 2024 to 2030, a third more than the previous seven-year period. Any future science fiction projects, like the Red Team, would fall into the ‘Innovation’ budgetary envelope of €10 billion.  

In the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Emmanuel Macron and his government argue that a major boost in military spending is needed for France to meet modern and future threats.  

The budget will go to the upper house, the Senate, before being voted on a final time in the National Assembly. The government hopes the final vote will take place before the annual military parade on July 14th. 

The creative process 

Virginie Tournay applied to write science fiction stories for the Ministère des Armées (Ministry of the Armed Forces) after seeing a job application on LinkedIn. Tournay is a researcher in political science at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). Before applying, she had already written and published one science fiction novel.  

She was selected to join the Red Team, alongside a dozen writers and graphic designers. None are members of the Armed Forces. Their job is to create stories and graphics imagining future threats between 2030 and 2060 for the Armed Forces to reflect on.  

They submit their work to the Blue Team, which is made up of analysts in the military. Tournay says the two teams have a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ whereby no-one ventures onto the other’s territory.   

“This experiment only works because the creative and the analysis sides are kept separate,” she says. 

“On the creative side, we produce the stories and submit them. But it’s not up to us, as the Red Team, to draw military lessons from them. I couldn’t even tell you who analyses them. That gives us immense freedom because we don’t have to think about how our stories will be received. And that’s really important, because otherwise we might not allow ourselves to create totally dystopian stories. We have total creative freedom.” 

Paris Sciences & Lettres (PSL) University manages the project’s operations. Its vice-president, Cédric Denis-Rémis, says there were two key selection criteria for the authors and graphic designers. First, they had to have already published at least one piece of science-fiction.  

Second, they had to agree, before they were hired, to abandon an idea if the group wanted to take another direction. Two consultants, both anthropologists, were brought in to act as referees.  

“Their super-power is to say: ‘We’re keeping this, we’re not keeping that’,” he explains. “They’re able to referee within the group, so that it can move forward.” 

PSL University has also put in place a team of researchers and scientists the Red Team can reach out to if they need specific knowledge and expertise. 

Keeping a low profile 

For some of the Red Team members, producing material for the military does not sit naturally with their identity as independent writers and graphic designers.  

“Some authors work under a pen name,” Tournay says. “For science-fiction authors who do it as a full-time job, it could get very, very complicated if they were to work openly with the army. Because science fiction is, by defintion, an anti-establishment field which rejects ‘the system’.” 

Like most academic researchers in France, Virginie Tournay is a civil servant. “For me, this falls within public service. My vocation is to strengthen and improve the workings of the state, the sovereign state,” she says. 

Commandant Jean-Baptiste Colas, from the Armed Forces’ Agency of Innovation Defense (AID), says the goal of storytellers like Tournay is to draw French military thinkers out of their comfort zone and away from group-think.  

“In the 21st century, faced with the current crises and those we will go through in the future, you have to know how to surround yourself with people who will push you away from your preconceptions, biases and classic organisational structures,” he says. 

Are the French doing anything new? 

France’s Armed Forces are not the first to reach out to the world of science fiction. The Sigma Forum has been providing science fiction consulting services to US officials for years. 

The UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) is also delving into the genre. Earlier this year, the MOD unveiled “eight visions of the future” written by two renowned American science fiction writers, Peter Singer and August Cole.  

“Thinking the unimaginable is simply a day in the office for talented sci-fi writers”, said chief scientific adviser Dame Angela McLean. “Who wouldn’t want to hear what people like that have to say?” 

Colas insists that France’s approach is different.  

“France has done it à la française. The Anglo-Saxon approach is very focused on technology,” he says (the French use the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ to describe the British, Americans, Canadians and Australians, or a mix of all four). 

Colas is keen not to be outdone by the ‘Anglo-Saxons’.

“For example, ‘Ghost Fleet’, by Peter Singer and August Cole, is a technological thriller. It deals with defence questions, but very much from a technological point of view,” he says. “France took a chance on having a group of authors who tackle issues relating to philosophy, sociology and psychology, which is not necessarily what our Anglo-Saxon allies are doing.” 

Why science fiction?  

The stories offer an alternative to the standard multi-page reports that decision-makers have to plough through.  

“We created these stories as a way to escape. They’re like a mini Netflix for a decision-maker,” says Colas. “Today, many have access to these stories, right up to the President of the Republic, to explore the context of these threats. It makes a nice change from the reports he sees every day, which can be a bit obscure, blunt and dry.” 

Colas says President Emmanuel Macron even asked for a direct, highly secure line so he could ask the Red Team questions.  

The story “After the Carbonic Night” explores warfare based on energy use and has led to reflections in the Armed Forces about energy consumption, particularly fuel, and a reliance on heavy-duty vehicles in combat zones.  

It describes record temperatures that cause a series of megafires that burn for months. Saving energy becomes necessary for immediate survival. Soldiers are equipped with special ‘Enskin’ protective gear, which includes communications tools and ensures energy management. They’re faced with enemy ‘Wenzis’, tiny robots modelled on mosquitoes, that sting their opponents to drain energy out of them.  

Colas says the Red Team were invited to join in on reflections over the Navy’s next-generation aircraft carrier, which will replace the Charles de Gaulle. The Red Team imagined possible attacks by pirates, which had not been anticipated by the engineers and industry experts involved.   

“Thanks to the Red Team,” says Colas, “when it came to protecting the near perimeter of the warship, that’s the area really, really near to it, parts of the aircraft carrier’s security provision were modified.” He did not elaborate, for obvious reasons of defence secrecy. 

What next for the Red Team?  

The Red Team have completed their mission, for now. The fourth and final season of scenarios will be presented to the Armed Forces at the end of June. Two stories will be available in bookshops in early 2024. The stories on sale to the public will be edited, so as not to give away classified information – or “give bad ideas to our enemies!” says Colas.  

He is confident that the project, which has cost 2 million euros, has proven its value.  

“We’re considering what would be feasible to put in place, perhaps a more ambitious programme that includes not only the defence sector,” he says. “What’s sure is that the adventure is not going to end. It will change format and perhaps bring in more actors than the experiment did.”