Ambassador Jean-David Levitte gave a speech at the French Embassy in Italy, Rome, on June 6, 2024.

"In just a few years, the world has changed profoundly. We are experiencing an unprecedented deconstruction of the world order, with three major developments combining to drive this change:

• First, the return of war on European soil, for the first time since the end of the Second World War, with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
• Second, the return of the Cold War on a global level. But an inverted Cold War: during the first the United States opposed the USSR, which had an underdeveloped China by its side, reeling from the upheavals of the end of Mao's reign. Today, the new Cold War features the United States opposed to a powerful and ambitious China, with a weakened Russia by its side.
• Finally, the return of a version of the Non-Aligned Movement, which is today called the “Global South” and which practices “multi-alignment” rather than “non-alignment”: countries like India, Brazil, South Africa or even Saudi Arabia do not want to have to choose between Washington, Brussels, Moscow or Beijing. They want to develop the most interesting partnerships with each of them.

These three major changes mark the end of five centuries of Western domination of the world. It started in 1492 with the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus and Magellan's circumnavigation, it was marked by the construction of huge colonial empires, two world wars, and the creation of international organizations all based in Western cities: New York, Washington, Geneva, Vienna and Rome. Their charters reflect the Western vision of international law based on the equality of sovereign states."