Editorial: Le Monde

• The first flight of Ariane-6, a project launched in 2014, turned out to be a success after months of program delays.
• This successful launch has made Europe return to its participation in the space area, a strategic sector for lunar exploration, defense, earth observation, telecoms, and high-speed Internet, using satellites.
• Ariane-6 is supposed to help recover some of the ground Europe has lost in the market that has been revolutionized by the emergence of New Space.
• However, Ariane-6 faces strong competition with SpaceX, Elon Musk's company, and New Glenn, Jeff Bezos's company, which are preparing to launch reusable next-generation rockets.
• Eumetsat, the European agency of meteorological satellites, has canceled the launch of one of its devices through Ariane-6 and has opted for SpaceX, showing its lack of confidence in the European project.

Conclusion: Europe needs to reorganize and adapt to the new competitive dynamics of the space sector as its sovereignty in terms of telecommunications is at stake. Changes need to be fast to avoid falling behind compared to other major nations like the United States, China, India, and Japan.

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