Lionel Suchet has been acting CEO of the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) since January, following the nomination of Philippe Baptiste as higher education and research minister. His appointment comes at a time of major disruption in the space industry, following the election of Donald Trump and the growing influence of Elon Musk.

Europe and the US have worked on iconic space missions together. I'm thinking in particular of the program to measure the height of seas and oceans, initiated over 30 years ago and essential to understanding global warming. Today, we have received no official letter announcing the end of any of our cooperative ventures. But we are seeing a change in attitude.

As a result of all these dismissals, such as that of scientific director Katherine Calvin, also vice president of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we don't have many people to deal with anymore. NASA is about to be led by Jared Isaacman, the first private astronaut to perform a spacewalk in September 2024 on a Musk spacecraft. We're increasingly wondering what are the intentions of the future administration.

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