New offices to find, new colleagues to meet, new projects to launch this is what the start of the academic year looks like for the researchers, postdocs, PhD students, and visiting scholars joining CREST this fall.
Coming from different countries and academic traditions, they will spend the coming months – or years – contributing to our four research areas: economics, sociology, statistics, and finance-insurance, while bringing their own scientific culture to the lab.
Here is an introduction to this year’s newcomers.
Researchers
This year, several new researchers are joining CREST, strengthening our core faculty and bringing new perspectives across our disciplines.
Marshall Taylor – Computational Sociology (Groupe ENSAE-ENSAI)
Marshall Taylor joins CREST from New Mexico State University, where he was an Associate Professor of Sociology and led the C3 Lab. His research explores questions of cognition and measurement in the sociology of culture, with a particular focus on how cultural knowledge is structured and studied.
Juliette Saetre – Sociology (Groupe ENSAE-ENSAI)
Juliette Saetre arrives from Toulouse School of Economics, where she was an IAST Postdoctoral Research Fellow; she received her PhD from the European University Institute. Her research examines how political attitudes and behaviors diffuse through migrant populations, reshaping political dynamics in receiving communities, with a broader interest in protest and collective action, migration, social networks, and diffusion.
Camille Urvoy – Economics (École polytechnique)
Camille Urvoy is currently an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Mannheim; she received her PhD from Sciences Po in 2021. Her work sits at the intersection of media economics and political economy. Camille Urvoy will join CREST in January 2027.
Maxim Sandiumenge-i-Boy – Economics (Télécom Paris)
Maxim Sandiumenge-i-Boy joins CREST as Assistant Professor of Economics in Fall 2026, following his PhD in Economics at Toulouse School of Economics. His research spans industrial organization, competition policy, computational methods, and machine learning.
Elliot Motte – Economics (Groupe ENSAE-ENSAI)
Elliot Motte received his PhD from Universitat Pompeu Fabra in June 2026. He will first take up a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of New South Wales in Fall 2026, before joining CREST-ENSAI as Assistant Professor of Economics in Fall 2027. A political economist, he is particularly interested in how media shapes public beliefs and behaviors.
Guillermo Alonso Alvarez – Finance-Insurance (Groupe ENSAE-ENSAI)
Guillermo Alonso Alvarez joins the Finance-Insurance team as Assistant Professor in Fall 2026. He was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan and received his PhD from Illinois Institute of Technology. His research interests include stochastic control, contract theory, mean-field games, machine learning, and financial and actuarial mathematics.
Postdoctoral Fellows
Our new postdoctoral researchers are contributing to ongoing projects and launching their own work in close collaboration with CREST teams.
- Davide Bordoli, Economics, with Olivier Gossner.
- Nassim Bourarach, Statistics
- Julia Francesca Engel, Economics, with Yves Le Yaouanq.
- David Heredia, Statistics, with Sébastien Da Veiga
- Arouna Kouandou, Statistics-Computer Science, ATER position
- Luisa Lore, Economics, with Matias Nunez.
- Grégoire Jacquemin, Finance-Insurance, with Olivier Lopez.
- Joao Miguel Machado, Statistics, with Anna Korba.
- Hugo Martin, Statistics-Computer Science, ATER position
- Siwan Boufadène, Statistics, with Anna Korba.
- Martin Rouault, Statistics, with Anna Korba.
- Remi Castera, Statistics, with Vianney Perchet.
- Emmanuel Esposito, Statistics, with Vianney Perchet.
PhD Students
This year, we welcome a new cohort of PhD students who are beginning their research journeys within our vibrant academic community.
23 new PhD students are joining CREST across our research clusters: 6 in the Economics team, 3 in Finance-Insurance, 10 in Statistics, and 4 in Sociology. 2 of them will join us on the CREST-ENSAI campus in Bruz, while the rest will be based at the CREST-ENSAE Paris or Télécom Paris campuses in Palaiseau.
Visiting Researchers and PhD Students
CREST is also hosting 13 visiting researchers and PhD students this year, joining us for research stays that foster international collaboration.
- Gerard Camats Penella, PhD student at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, joins the Economics team to work with Giovanni Ricco on monetary policy and financial markets.
- Clara-Marie Pache, PhD student at Leipzig University, Germany, joins the Economics team to work with Pierre Boyer on the relationship between scientific evidence and public policymaking.
- Mahmut Sefa Ipek, PhD student at Bilkent University, Turkey, joins the Economics team to work with Giovanni Ricco on monetary policy transmission and macroeconomic dynamics.
- Léopold Dubreuil, Public Administrator, France, joins the Economics team to work with Pierre Boyer on corporate taxation and fiscal integration in the European Union.
- Bertille Antoine, researcher at Simon Fraser University, Canada, joins the Economics team to work with Xavier d’Haultfœuille on econometrics and financial econometrics.
- András Fülöp, researcher at ESSEC Business School, France, joins the Statistics team to work with Nicolas Chopin on Bayesian inference methods for econometrics and finance.
- Anna Rae George, PhD student at the University of Oxford, UK, joins the Sociology team to work with Etienne Ollion on computational approaches to online communication.
- Julia Pickersgill, PhD student at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Switzerland, joins the Economics team to work with Enrico Rubolino on gender inequality and public policy.
- Anna Pajola, PhD student at Bielefeld University, Germany, joins the Finance-Insurance team to work with Roxana Dumitrescu on mean-field games and stochastic control.
- Jiayu Liu, PhD student at the TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology, Germany, joins the Statistics team to work with Vianney Perchet on learning-augmented online algorithms.
- Taylor Brenden Alarcon, PhD student at Columbia University, USA, joins the Sociology team to work with Hesu Yoon on gentrification and the use of urban public space.
- Carla Ruggiu, PhD student at Panthéon-Sorbonne, France, joins the Economics team to work with Enrico Rubolino on work-family trade-offs and fertility.
- Louise Brandily, PhD student at Panthéon-Sorbonne, France, joins the Economics team to work with Pierre Boyer on public budgetary frameworks.
« Bataille culturelle », l’omniprésence d’une expression minée
La métaphore envahit les discours médiatiques et politiques, nourrit pétitions ou travaux universitaires, comme elle justifie les investissements de grandes fortunes dans le secteur de la culture et des médias. Retour sur la trajectoire historique et les multiples sens d’une notion floue, voire piégeuse.
Avec Etienne Ollion, pour le journal La Croix, 24/06/2026
«La France n’est pas prête au climat d’aujourd’hui et encore moins à celui de demain» : l’alerte de 26 scientifiques
FIGAROVOX/TRIBUNE – En marge d’une rencontre avec Giorgia Meloni, Emmanuel Macron a affirmé qu’on ne pouvait pas s’adapter «à un pic [de chaleur] qui n’a pas d’équivalent aujourd’hui». Vingt-six scientifiques lui répondent. Non seulement ces records étaient prévisibles, mais ils seront battus dans les années à venir, expliquent-ils.
Avec Samuel Rufat, pour Le Figaro, le 29/06/2026
Best Paper Award at WebSci’26 for Yasmine Houri
Yasmine Houri, PhD candidate in the Sociology cluster at CREST, has received the Best Paper Award at the 18th ACM Web Science Conference (WebSci’26), held in Braunschweig, Germany, from May 26 to 29, 2026.
The award recognises the paper co-authored with Upasana Dutta (University of Pennsylvania): “Framing the Fringe: Dynamics of Ingroup and Outgroup Narratives in Fringe Telegram Channels”.
About the paper
The research examines the narrative dynamics at work in so-called “fringe” Telegram channels — spaces at the margins of mainstream platforms where radical, conspiracist, or extremist discourse circulates. Drawing on large-scale computational analysis, the authors investigate how these communities construct and mobilise group narratives, distinguishing between representations of the ingroup and the outgroup, in order to reinforce internal cohesion and delegitimise outside figures.
This work sits at the intersection of media sociology, web science, and natural language processing — a rapidly growing field seeking to better understand online radicalisation mechanisms and the ways in which alternative platforms shape collective identities.
About WebSci
The ACM Web Science Conference is one of the leading academic venues for the study of interactions between the web and society, covering online behaviour, misinformation dynamics, recommendation algorithms, and the societal impact of social media. The Best Paper Award is selected by a peer review committee from among all submitted contributions.
CREST warmly congratulates Yasmine Houri on this distinction, which reflects the quality and relevance of her doctoral research.
March 8: Celebrating the Work of Women Researchers an PhD students at CREST
From climate economics to machine learning and public policy, women researchers and PhD students at CREST contribute every day to advancing knowledge and addressing major societal challenges.
Every year on March 8, International Women’s Rights Day highlights the achievements of women across society and offers an opportunity to reflect on progress toward gender equality. In academia, women researchers play a crucial role in advancing knowledge, even though they remain underrepresented in several disciplines and at senior levels.
At CREST, women researchers and PhD students contribute actively to research in economics, sociology, finance and statistics. Through their work, they help strengthen the laboratory’s international visibility while addressing some of the major economic and social challenges of our time.
Research shedding light on societal transformations
Many women researchers at CREST conduct research that directly informs debates on public policy and social change.
For example, Marion Leroutier has studied differences in carbon footprints between men and women. Her research shows that women emit on average around 26% less CO₂ than men, a gap largely explained by differences in consumption patterns, particularly in transportation and food. This work contributes to discussions on environmental policy and highlights how gendered behaviors can influence the distributional effects of climate policies.
Research conducted at CREST also addresses broader demographic and economic transformations. Studies on the decline in fertility in France and other developed countries, by Pauline Rossi in her recent book, examine the economic and social implications of demographic change, a topic that has become increasingly central to public debate.
Recognition of women researchers at CREST
The work of women researchers at CREST is regularly recognized by the international academic community.
In 2026, Yuki Tamura received the Young Female Researchers Award from the Japanese Economic Association, highlighting the growing international visibility of her research.
In statistics and machine learning, Anna Korba was awarded a prestigious ERC Starting Grant for her project OptInfinite, which aims to develop new optimization and machine learning methods in infinite-dimensional settings.
These distinctions illustrate the diversity and excellence of research conducted by women scientists at CREST across multiple disciplines.
Women contributing to economic policy and public debate
Women researchers at CREST are also actively involved in shaping economic debate and public policy.
For instance, Emmanuelle Taugourdeau and Pauline Rossi were recently appointed members of the Conseil d’analyse économique, an advisory body that provides economic expertise to the French government. Their work contributes to bringing rigorous economic analysis into policy discussions.
CREST researchers also regularly participate in public debates through media appearances and collaborations with institutions, helping to disseminate research findings beyond academia.
The role of doctoral researchers
Doctoral students are another essential component of the laboratory’s research ecosystem. Many PhD students at CREST contribute to innovative research projects in areas such as labor markets, inequality, discrimination, data science and financial economics.
In the 2025-2026 cohort, nearly half of the newly recruited PhD students are women (12 women and 15 men), reflecting CREST’s ability to attract talented young female researchers. This dynamic is an important aspect of the laboratory’s commitment to promoting diversity in academic careers, not only at the doctoral level but throughout all stages of recruitment.
Looking ahead
International Women’s Rights Day is both a moment to celebrate achievements and a reminder of the importance of continuing to promote diversity in research.
At CREST, the work of women researchers and doctoral students contributes every day to advancing knowledge and to improving our understanding of economic and social transformations.
On this March 8, we celebrate their contributions to the laboratory’s scientific life and to the broader academic community.
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Scientific excellence depends on the diversity of perspectives within the research community. Supporting the careers of women researchers and doctoral students is therefore not only a matter of equality, but also a key condition for the vitality and impact of research. At CREST, we are committed to fostering an academic environment where talent can thrive at every stage of the scientific career.
Find more highlights by women at CREST:
Entretien avec Annina Claesson : la place des réseaux sociaux dans le quotidien parlementaire
Ce mois-ci a paru l’article d’Annina Claesson:“Le prix de la visibilité”, dans la Revue Française de Sciences Politique. Cet article s’inscrit dans son travail de thèse Se rendre visible : la place des réseaux sociaux dans le quotidien parlementaire. Son article est disponible sur site de la plateforme CAIRN.
Computational Social Sciences at CREST: Exploring Social Phenomena in the Digital Age
The Computational Social Sciences (CSS) group is built around researchers interested in understanding social phenomena through new data sources and computational methods.
Based within the Economics and Sociology Department of the Institut Polytechnique de Paris, the group brings together scholars from various disciplines – sociology, economics, statistics, and computer science, in particular.
A Broad Research Agenda at the Intersection of Data and Society
The work of the CSS group covers a wide range of topics linked to the digital transformation of societies. Its members study how new technologies reshape social processes, how the growing availability of data influences everyday life, and how digital infrastructures are designed, maintained and used. At the same time, they develop and apply new methods in order to make the most of the current data abundance.
This dual focus, substantive social questions on the one hand, methodological innovations on the other, lies at the heart of the group’s approach.
Training, Seminars, and Scientific Activities
The CSS group is also deeply involved in training and scientific exchange. It organizes the seminar series “AI for Social Sciences”, which regularly host international speakers working on the uses of artificial intelligence and machine learning in social research. The team also contributes to the organization of the international summer school “The Summer Institutes in Computational Social Sciences (SICSS)”, helping to train students and researchers in computational methods.
In addition, the group regularly takes part in the organization of scientific conferences and offers opportunities for young researchers through PhD grants, internships and research assistant positions.
Information about these activities, as well as news and resources, is available on the CSS website.
Open Science: A New Set of Tutorials
An important part of the CSS mission is to make methods accessible to the wider research community. The group regularly publishes tutorials designed to help researchers work with new tools and data. They recently released a new set, and reorganized the page to facilitate discovery.
Their latest tutorial, “The General Inquirer in the Time of LLMs: a BERTopic tutorial”, focuses on a common task in social science research: identifying and structuring the main themes in a collection of documents. How can we understand what a corpus is about? How similar are the documents? Which topics are most central?
Using the BERTopic framework, the tutorial introduces the main principles of topic modeling and shows how these methods can be applied in a social science project, in the context of recent developments in large language models and text analysis.
The tutorial is available here.
Looking Ahead: a New Master’s Program in Computational Social Science
Starting in September 2025, the CSS group significantly contributes to a new Master’s Program in Computational Social Science at the Institut Polytechnique de Paris. Taught entirely in English, the program offers advanced courses in statistical and computational methods, with a strong emphasis on applied research and skills that are valuable both in academia and beyond.
Through its research, training activities and open resources, the CSS group aims to provide a space for reflection and experimentation on how social sciences can engage with the digital transformation of societies.
2025 CREST Highlights
As 2025 draws to a close, CREST reflects on a year marked by outstanding research achievements, prestigious recognitions, and impactful initiatives. Below is an overview of the laboratory’s key highlights.
This year was notably marked by CREST’s evaluation by HCERES, which recognised the laboratory as an excellent multidisciplinary research centre, particularly for the quality of its publications and its strong international visibility.
In 2025, CREST also organised its first retreat, a collective event dedicated to reflecting on the future of the laboratory and initiating concrete measures to improve laboratory life, internal communication, and the consideration of key issues such as research organisation, environmental policy, and international inclusion.
Key figures
- Researchers | 112
- PhD candidates | 100 PhD currently enrolled at CREST-Institut Polytechnique de Paris
- ERC Grants | 9 ERC grants in Economics, Sociology, and Statistics
Doctoral training
In 2025, CREST organised a series of doctoral courses delivered by professors from leading universities (MIT, Oxford, University of Tokyo, among others), offering advanced training to ENSAE Paris students and, in particular, to CREST PhD candidates. These courses enabled doctoral researchers to deepen their theoretical and methodological skills while engaging with cutting-edge research developed in academic environments beyond CREST.
20 PhD candidates graduated from CREST-IP Paris in 2025, pursuing a wide range of high-level career paths across academia, the public sector, and industry. Several alumni secured academic positions as Assistant Professors at institutions such as LMU Munich, ETH Zurich, and Hitotsubashi University. Other joined key public institutions, including a position as Head of the Families Study Section at INSEE, or transitioned to the private sector as Applied Scientist at Amazon and Economist at Malt. These placements reflect CREST’s strong commitment to doctoral training and its ability to prepare PhD graduates for impactful careers across sectors.
Research Breakthroughs: 204 Publications
In 2025, CREST published 204 scientific contributions, including conference papers presented at major international venues. Nearly 80% of these publications appeared in top Q1 journals, reflecting the breadth and depth of research conducted across the laboratory’s clusters.
Selected highlights include:
The Negligible Effect of Free Contraception on Fertility: Experimental Evidence from Burkina Faso, Pascaline Dupas, Seema Jayachandran, Adriana Lleras-Muney, Pauline Rossi, American Economic Review
From Public Labs to Private Firms: Magnitude and Channels of Local R&D Spillovers, Antonin Bergeaud, Arthur Guillouzouic, Emeric Henry, Clément Malgouyres, Quarterly Journal of Economics
The Biodiversity Premium, Guillaume Coqueret, Thomas Giroux, Olivier-David Zerbib, Ecological Economics
Propagation of a Carbon Price in a Credit Portfolio through Macroeconomic Factors, Géraldine Bouveret, Jean-François Chassagneux, Smail Ibbou, Antoine J. Jacquier, Lionel Sopgoui, SIAM Journal on Financial Mathematics
Machine Bias: How Do Generative Language Models Answer Opinion Polls?, Julien Boelaert, Samuel Coavoux, Etienne Ollion, Ivaylo Petev, Patrick Präg, Sociological Methods & Research
Beyond Indices: Profiles of Social Vulnerability Gap in Disaster Risk Perception, Eric Tate, Samuel Rufat, Md Asif Rahman, Shelley Hoover, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction
Mapping Cells trough Time and Space with MOSCOT, Dominik Klein et al., Nature
Asymptotic Equivalence of Locally Stationary Processes and Bivariate Gaussian White Noise, Cristina Butucea, Alexander Meister, Angelika Rohde, Annals of Statistics
Discover more CREST publications on our HAL webpage.
Impactful Events and Conferences
Throughout the year, CREST actively participated in and hosted events fostering collaboration and scientific exchange, including:
- Exploring Political and Economic Dynamics: A Conference with Guido Tabellini
- Summer School on Environmental Data Collection and Analysis for the Social Sciences
- Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) and CREST’s 19 accepted papers
- Navigating the Future of Money: The Futures of Money Workshop
- Paola Tubaro at Buenos Aires’ “Nuit des Idées” on the Invisible Workforce Behind AI
- Summer Institute in Computational Social Sciences with a focus on large language models and generative AI
Join future events: visit our calendar
Chairs and Research Structures
In 2025, CREST welcomed two new chairs:
- CARE | Assurabilité des Risques Emergents, led by Olivier Lopez, focusing on climate risk modelling, risk coverage and distribution mechanisms, and prevention strategies, with Allianz IARD, Institut Louis Bachelier, Fondation du Risque. More information here.
- Hi! Paris Chair, led by Etienne Ollion, developing the Textual Politics, project on the transformation of political analysis through natural language processing. More information here.
Awards and Recognitions
CREST researchers received numerous distinctions in 2025, including:
- ERC Advanced Grant awarded to Arnak Dalalyan for Statistical Analysis of Generative Models: Sampling Guarantees and Robustness (SAGMOS)
- ERC Starting Grant awarded to Anna Korba for Efficient Infinite-Dimensional Optimization over Measures (OptInfinite)
- Etienne Ollion, honourable mention by the American Political Science Associate for his book The Candidates
- Maddalena Conte, recipient of the Philippe Martin Best Thesis Award in Economics for her work on highlighting the decisive role of professional networks, access to housing, and business location in regional inequalities.
- Thomas Giroux, recipient of the 2025 Award for Young Researchers in Green Finance from the Banque de France.
Several CREST researchers were also appointed to key institutional roles, including the Conseil d’Analyse Economique, for Emmanuelle Taugourdeau and Pauline Rossi, Patricia Crifo was named a Senior Advisor at la Cour des Comptes. Julien Prat was named Head of the Department of Economics-Sociology at Institut Polytechnique de Paris.
Books, Projects, and Initiatives
In 2025, CREST researchers authored and contributed to major collective works and projects:
- Handbook of Quantitative Finance, edited by Peter Tankov and Ruixing Zhang, addressing sustainability, climate risk, regulation, and sustainable financial instruments.
- Google has again supported CREST researchers:
- Anna Korba for her project “Optimizing Diffusion Models via Generative Bilevel Learning“
- Vianney Perchet for his project “Design, Incentivization, Optimization and (Reinforcement-)Learning of Multi-Layered Market“
- Guillaume Hollard launched OrienteExpress, a research project with Ecole polytechnique and Docaposte (Index Education) on AI for career guidance and equal opportunities.
- Observatory of Equal Opportunities, jointly launched by IP Paris, the Ecoles Normales Supérieures, and the Institut des Politiques Publiques, with CREST researchers contributing to the analysis of inequalities in access to elite higher education.
This year also marked the third season of the Beyond the PhD video series, featuring Benoît Schmutz-Bloch, Caroline Hillairet, Paola Tubaro, and Nicolas Chopin, who shared their thoughts on the PhD journey, its impact on their careers, and the broader role of research in society.
Media and Outreach
In 2025, CREST researchers were featured in:
- More than 100 media outlets, including, Le Monde, Les Echos, France Culture, Libération, and La Tribune.
- 24+ op-eds and expert articles contributing to public debate.
Featured interview: Béatrice Cherrier discusses the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics. Listen here.
International Scientific Exchange
In 2025, CREST organised 228 research seminars across macroeconomics, applied microeconomics, sociology, finance and financial econometrics, quantitative sustainable economics and finance, statistics, actuarial science, mathematical finance, and AI for social sciences. Researchers from 20 countries were invited, representing institutions across North America, Europe, and Asia, including UCLA, MIT, Yale, Columbia, Northwestern, Oxford, LSE, ETH Zurich, Bocconi, HEC Lausanne, KU Leuven, LMU, Toronto, Waseda, and Osaka University. This extensive programme further reinforced CREST’s role as a central hub for international research dialogue.
CREST celebrated a year of remarkable achievements and meaningful contributions to research, society, and global debates. From groundbreaking publications to prestigious awards and high-level scientific exchanges, CREST community continues to push boundaries and foster innovation.
Looking ahead, CREST remains committed to advancing interdisciplinary research, addressing major societal challenges, and nurturing a collaborative and inclusive environment for researchers and students alike.
Samuel Coavoux analyse le phénomène des “kidultes” dans Le Progrès
Le Progrès consacre un article au développement du phénomène des « kidultes », ces adultes qui redonnent un fort dynamisme au marché du jouet. Interrogé en tant que spécialiste des pratiques culturelles, Samuel Coavoux, sociologue au CREST, y éclaire les ressorts structurels de cette évolution. Il rappelle que l’essor du public adulte relève d’abord d’une transformation du marché : dans un contexte de baisse de natalité et de saturation du segment enfant, les industriels du jouet ont investi de nouveaux publics, notamment à travers des stratégies de licences, de collection et de produits destinés aux nostalgiques.
Samuel Coavoux souligne également que cette tendance n’est pas uniquement liée à une quête d’évasion, mais à une légitimation croissante des pratiques ludiques à l’âge adulte. Les réseaux sociaux, en facilitant la constitution de communautés de passionnés, ont contribué à rendre ces loisirs visibles et socialement acceptés. Le phénomène kidulte apparaît ainsi comme un exemple révélateur de la manière dont évoluent les frontières entre loisirs « jeunes » et pratiques culturelles adultes.
Participation d’Étienne Ollion à l’enquête « L’université française est-elle vraiment sous influence woke ? »
Dans le cadre d’un reportage de Complément d’enquête consacré aux débats autour du supposé « wokisme » à l’université, Étienne Ollion, sociologue et directeur de recherche au CREST-CNRS, intervient pour présenter les résultats d’une étude qu’il a dirigée sur l’évolution des thèmes de recherche en sciences sociales en France.
S’appuyant sur l’analyse d’un vaste corpus de publications depuis le début des années 2000, son travail montre que les approches liées au genre ou à la race progressent, mais de manière modérée : la part d’articles mobilisant ces notions reste limitée et varie fortement selon les disciplines. L’étude met également en évidence que des thématiques classiques comme la classe sociale demeurent centrales, et que l’écriture inclusive reste marginale dans les publications académiques.
Dans l’émission, Étienne Ollion rappelle ainsi que les données disponibles ne confirment pas l’idée d’une domination idéologique dans les sciences sociales françaises. Son intervention contribue à replacer le débat dans une perspective empirique et à nuancer les discours alarmistes en circulation.
Lien vers le replay de l’émission ici.