ResearchFebruary 20268 min read

Interview with Isabelle Autissier: 2026 annual study

Theme of the month: “The marine feeling”

Public policies relating to the sea

Summary

An interview with Isabelle Autissier on the Conseil d’État’s 2026 annual study, “The sea and public policy”; the first part of the monthly theme “The marine feeling”.

Article translated from French. The translation may contain inaccuracies: only the original version is authoritative. Read the original version

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Deep Blue Foundation’s Research section follows a monthly theme through three publications. A first interview, based on a topical issue, opens a space for expression. A second focuses on a sector and sets out to promote its various professions. Finally, an article, as a production, takes on the monthly theme directly in order to unfold its stakes. This publication is an interview based on a topical issue.

Each year, the Conseil d’État produces a tool for legal and political reflection: the annual study. Through conferences, hearings and reports, France’s highest administrative court builds a set of proposals for the country, aimed at better governance in the face of contemporary challenges.

You took part in the second conference of the 2026 annual study, whose theme was “Ecological and economic issues”. What do you expect from the Conseil d’État for the final publication?

Isabelle Autissier – First of all, I commend the Conseil d’État for taking an interest in the question of the ocean. It is original. In fact, it is an extremely cross-cutting question: we do everything with the ocean. Not only do we fish and farm there, but it also carries most of our trade, geopolitics, tourism, a host of economic activities, spatial planning, and even war. I hope the Conseil d’État will be able to build a “holistic” vision from which to derive the state’s action. First and foremost in legislative terms, through proposals, or at least avenues to explore. The French claim the world’s second-largest maritime space, but if it were as important to the French nation, if we experienced it that way, perhaps we would manage it better.

In your talk, you stressed the need to change focus; more precisely, you call for a global approach to ocean issues. While a total approach seems ideal, how, in your view, can this globality become concrete? Through what mechanisms could comprehensive action for the ocean be expressed?

I. A. – In France, there is the CIMER (the interministerial committee for the sea), which unfortunately does not meet very often. We also have a Ministry of the Sea, which could follow situations day to day. Today, this ministry is very much a ministry of fisheries. I think it should, at the very least, have fairly broad coordination powers, but perhaps that remark owes something to current events. Take one example among others: deep-sea exploration. It combines economic and technological questions, geopolitics and, of course, questions of biodiversity, preservation and, more generally, research. Everything to do with the deep sea cannot be approached through the narrow end of each telescope or each separate theme. I therefore think that a Ministry of the Sea with precise powers over these forms of coordination and over the handling of maritime files might make it possible to harmonise all these perspectives more consistently. In France we have major assets: first-rate research, a number of high-performing manufacturers, a powerful and well-organised Navy. We have a diplomacy that works well among the great nations, assets in maritime tourism and, mainly thanks to our overseas territories, exceptional biodiversity. What is missing is effective coordination, a global vision.

If the paradigm of protecting the ocean and its diversity depends on knowledge of it, where should we look in order to act effectively?

I. A. – As an aside, I would say that the first thing to look at is funding. Everything follows from that. The ocean is not an easy environment for humans; technically, it is costly to go there. With the United Nations, we are supposed to be in the Decade of Ocean Science until 2030, and therefore in a decade normally devoted to knowledge. It would make sense to embody it through large-scale programmes. Today, the sensitive ecosystems deteriorating the most are all the marginal and coastal seas subject to development, in some places to overfishing, in others to contamination by plastics and agricultural inputs, leading for example to green algae blooms. Yet we know that, biologically, these environments are the most productive: coral in our warm islands, seagrass meadows in mainland France. They are essential as substrates, feeding grounds or nurseries. Even though they are close to us, we are still far from understanding how these ecosystems work. A second example that is much discussed is trawling. When we talk about trawling, we immediately think of the mesh size of the net and its bycatch, but much less of the trawl’s action on the seabed: this ploughing has a colossal impact on the substrates, the very ones that then feed the whole fishery ecosystem. Here again there is a huge amount to understand, particularly about how the ecosystems that sustain life function. To return to the deep sea, it is extremely difficult to observe and analyse, but it is also home to particular ways of life. Species there withstand total darkness, cold, colossal pressures and very little food. These environments host mechanisms for using energy other than the sun, which cannot penetrate there. All these organisms and mechanisms are obviously of colossal interest to human societies. So yes, an effort must be made there too.

The ocean seems far away from us. Do you think there is a link between the marine feeling, as an affective awareness of the ocean, and its protection? Do we lack affection for what must be protected?

I. A. – Obviously, we protect what we love. We love our family, we protect our family. We love our country, we protect our country. And we love the sea, so we should protect the sea. But the French love the ocean essentially as a place of leisure. The ocean means holidays. Moreover, the collective imagination is tinged with vertigo: we think the ocean is limitless, that pollution is diluted in it, that you only need to put on a mask to see lots of different fish. The ocean supposedly has some kind of internal capacity to regenerate. Take the example of whales: it is not hard to love them, they are magnificent animals. Nor is it hard to show that hunting them puts them in danger and that we risk seeing them disappear. Once the fragility of these species had been demonstrated, when their size suggested they could defend themselves, action became possible. The moratorium, based on their fragility, led to a protection movement. I think it is this sense of fragility that is missing from our overall relationship with the ocean. Take another example, plankton. Plankton is absolutely indispensable to marine life, since it is its foundation. It is also an extremely important element in capturing atmospheric carbon. But many people barely know plankton exists. Yet it is endangered by global warming, acidification and pollution, and who really cares? So there is indeed an awareness-raising effort to be made about the exhaustible nature of the ocean. Because no, the ocean is not unlimited, and the functions that allow us to live are currently at risk. However, I think we must always link the question of harm and disruption with that of solutions and implementation. Otherwise, we cultivate an eschatological pessimism. We obviously have a number of solutions, but also tools. Let me take another example, that of Posidonia and other seagrass meadows found along a number of coastlines. They too are extraordinary carbon sinks, fishery resources and nurseries. We have the means to protect them, whether through regulation, sanctuarisation or replanting. It is by supporting such research and protection initiatives that the idea of fragility takes root in the collective imagination.

Do you think our shared culture lacks testimonies and figures?

I. A. – Some people make it possible to focus attention. Cousteau, for example, did a tremendous amount in his day. He opened the public’s mind to what was happening underwater; through his films and all his appearances, he became an emblematic figure. Whether human or animal, such figures are known as “umbrellas”. Since it is not easy to talk about biodiversity in global terms, well-known people will highlight certain emblematic species. For the sea, for example, these are whales, just as the lion is for the savannah. Metonymically, when we set out to protect them, we protect the environments that host them and thus all the other species that live there. To take a concrete example, WWF has done a lot of work in the Mediterranean on the contamination of whales by pesticides and plastic residues. By linking the species to its environment, we make plastic pollution an attack on the species. Inductively, we draw conclusions about what we humans do in terms of changes to natural environments. Once again, it is difficult to convey the complexity of the mechanisms of biodiversity and marine life; pulling the thread from an emblematic species makes it possible to raise public awareness. In other words, raising awareness for the protection of the ocean means enabling everyone to take ownership of its stakes.

Interview by Hugo Sannier, Director of the Research section at Deep Blue Foundation.

THE NEED FOR A NEW COORDINATION

I. Autissier’s call for “effective coordination” echoes the kind of coordination called for a few months earlier in Marine et Océans by P. Thomson, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean: “[…] It is true that the health of the ocean continues to deteriorate, but it is essential that we meet periodically to share views, improve coordination and strengthen our joint efforts to halt and reverse this degradation”. While the multiplication of meetings accelerates the cross-fertilisation of viewpoints, we want to recall what coordination requires. It is in the pooling of efforts that the reversal of the environmental and oceanic trend is at stake. The imperative of collapse, against which the various maritime actors are mobilising, is paradoxical: it calls for unprecedented inventiveness, and yet we keep thinking through distinctions that have become obsolete. Through its conferences, the Conseil d’État offers a fairly new kind of gathering; let us make the most of it.

Isabelle Autissier

Sailor – honorary president of WWF France

An agronomist engineer specialising in fisheries, between 1990 and 2000 she completed four single-handed round-the-world sailing races, becoming the first woman to sail around the world solo in a race. Long committed to protecting the environment and biodiversity, she is honorary president of WWF France, president of the Advisory Council of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, and president of the Steering Council of the Office français de la biodiversité.