The 20th
anniversary
edition
March 14 & 15, 2025
at UNESCO • Paris

The newspaper La Croix, of which you are one of the editors-in-chief, has made 2025 a year focused on covering major climate issues and preserving biodiversity. What led to this initiative, and what are its goals?

Jean-Christophe Ploquin: For the past ten years, ecology has been identified by the editorial management as one of the key editorial themes of La Croix. Three years ago, this led to the creation of a weekly section inserted every Wednesday in the newspaper, and a weekly newsletter, both titled Planète.

At the end of 2024, we realized that we could go further, with the idea that these topics needed to be handled by the entire editorial team and in all sections—politics, health, education, international, religion, culture… To achieve this, we set up an "Ecology Network" with representatives from each department. Four experts also enthusiastically joined us to support the initiative—Valérie Masson-Delmotte, Benjamin Allegrini, Cécile Renouard, and Arnaud Gossement.

This initiative aims to maintain a high level of information across all our platforms—the app, website, newspaper, and weekly magazine—at a time when ecological issues are less prioritized by national political leaders. Our approach is proactive: we believe that the challenges of climate change and biodiversity collapse are extremely serious, and that the media has an important role to play in spreading scientific knowledge. It is also essential to highlight the solutions and adaptations being implemented.

You engage your readers a lot through meetings and exchanges with the editorial team, especially: what is the importance of this connection in a world where the virtual takes up more and more space in our daily lives?

We rely on our readers and the internet users who follow us on our digital platforms to enrich our investigative work and participate in the debates we organize. Our slogan for 2025 is "Let's talk ecology," with the idea of discussing it more, better, and with as many people as possible. We want to emphasize the qualitative challenge of providing ecological information.

On one hand, these topics are complex, and it’s normal for conflicting interests and opinions to arise in the face of sometimes difficult-to-grasp realities. On the other hand, experts in cognitive sciences warn that catastrophism ends up turning citizens away from information or creating feelings of discouragement and disinterest.

Therefore, we want to work on how to inform people. And we will benefit from the historically strong connection that La Croix has always sought to cultivate with its readers.

La Croix is a partner of the 20th edition of the Université de la terre, whose central theme will be "Nature = Future." What role do the media have to play in the protection of life, and do you think it is being fulfilled today?

We are happy and proud of this partnership with l’Université de la terre, which fits into a long-standing trajectory. The media are mediators! In a world where news now comes from everywhere and disinformation is amplified by the power of digital platforms, they have a crucial role in authenticating and prioritizing information, as well as investigating and educating.

The protection of life is undoubtedly a subject that needs to gain more prominence in the media. Scientists speak of a current process leading to the sixth mass extinction of species. This is an extremely serious issue. Our ways of life and the stability of the economic system could be rapidly affected. The loss of ecosystem diversity, the collapse of wildlife and plant populations will impact many sectors. And in some regions of the world, it will lead to famines.

This situation is still poorly understood by the general public. The media must take it on. The upcoming United Nations Ocean Conference, which will be held in Nice from June 9 to 13, 2025, must be seized as an opportunity. As for La Croix, we will publish a special issue of our Hebdo in mid-March, on the occasion of the Université de la terre event at UNESCO, dedicated to the beauty and preservation of life.

The media must address issues of representations and imaginations because, in order to foster awareness, we need to show what a more sober world could look like, and not just adaptations. This is also part of our Christian identity: sobriety leads to a societal model that prevents the excesses of hyperconsumption and a questionable technological fascination.

2025 will mark the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’ Laudato si’ encyclical, as well as the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement. Why is this encyclical so significant, and what does it bring to humanity?

These two anniversaries explain why La Croix chose 2025 to deepen its coverage of ecological topics. In May and June, we will look extensively at the effects of Pope Francis’ encyclical; and in November and December, we will closely follow COP30 in Brazil, which will provide an international review ten years after the Paris Agreement.

Laudato si’ resonated strongly in 2015 because, for the first time in Catholicism, it linked the future of humanity with the preservation of the environment. At the crossroads of doctrine and spirituality, Pope Francis explains that the Earth, "our common home," is "like a sister, with whom we share existence, and like a mother, beautiful, who welcomes us with open arms"; that our bodies are themselves made up of the elements of the planet; that the air of our earthly system "gives us breath." Yet this Earth, mistreated and ravaged, "cries," and its groans echo those of the world’s most marginalized. This leads the Pope to call for an "ecological conversion."

Ten years later, this great text has spread. And many, not only Catholics, have embraced ecological engagement as a renewed spiritual dimension. This will be one of our investigative topics next spring!