Last Friday, April 8th, a meeting was held in Nice, presided over by Georges Leonetti, concerning the development of a Regional Plan to combat misinformation and conspiracy theories.
This initiative is part of the science, technology, and industry culture dissemination policy implemented by the South Region since 2016. Over five years, more than 6 million euros have been invested to stimulate debate on the role of science and encourage young people to pursue scientific and technical careers.
For Renaud Muselier, President of the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur Region, “access to a scientific culture is essential for understanding major societal challenges.” In line with its mission, he aims to adopt operational measures to combat misinformation and conspiracy theories by December 2022, which he considers “a major challenge for our democracy.”
Regional states of the science, technology, and industry culture and other sector stakeholders have thus gathered under the guidance of Georges Leonetti, regional advisor in charge of health, pandemic response, and higher education and research, to consider solutions and tools to be implemented.
Through workshops, they have exchanged ideas and have formulated targeted proposals on three axes:
– strengthening the role of science in public debate;
– undertaking specific actions to curb the mechanisms enabling the spread of “fake news,” particularly among young people;
– preventing the development and dissemination of conspiracy theories.
Currently under review, the conclusions of this meeting will lead, by the end of the year, to the adoption of measures that will join approximately 350 other projects initiated by the science, technology, and industry culture dissemination policy.
