ABSTRACT
Back in 1980, some French pioneers, among themRobert Lion, Serge
Antoine, and Joe¨l de Rosnay, founded the “Comite´ d’Action pour le
Solaire”. Their first task was to draft and publish the “Manifesto for
a Solar France”. That visionary text anticipated that by the end of
the 20th century, 20% to 25% of all energy needs could be met with
the solar, heat, light, wind, water and bio-energies. The backlash of
the oil price shock and the choice of nuclear electricity have rapidly
buried the ambitions of this text. France refused to look for the Sun
and its eclipse was going to last for quite a long time. Then in 1984,
the two undersigned of the present text take over the job at the
‘Comite´ d’Action pour le Solaire’ and keep fighting to keep alive the
fantastic idea of the renewable energies. The first is an architect and
became the president. The second is a journalist and became the
director general of the association and editor in chief of the journal
“Action Solaire”. Since those days, we acted like a durable twosome
and carried out, in a quasi general indifference, the research of
proofs of the pertinence and the effectiveness of the “renewables”
and the big challenge of information.
