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We have written, on various occasions, about the challenges facing the European Union when it comes to economic and strategic autonomy. More particularly, in our previous issue we raised the question of reindustrialization, which may well become a more intensely debated matter here in Europe. Pierre Veltz complements the thinking on these subjects by confronting the challenges around competitiveness and reindustrialization from a different angle. The word ‘industry’ naturally conjures up visions of unattractive jobs and potentially damaged landscapes, but things have changed, and the industrial sector can be understood today in a broader sense that incorporates economically promising and attractive activities and services. This is an essential step, Veltz argues, since one of the present challenges will be to create a meaningful social project around reindustrialization—one that is both anchored in the necessary ecological ‘fork in the road’ and potentially appealing to the citizens of France and Europe. He offers us a different narrative that can win individuals over to the idea of reindustrialization: it is the story of a ‘hyper-industrial’ world, the main pillars of which he outlines here, inviting us to think about what our priorities really are when it comes to production. With a reimagined productive base of this kind, the manufacture of material objects is, as he sees it, just one component among others that are necessarily more ‘human-centred’ and in phase with the socio-ecological values, aspirations and needs of Europeans.