If France could lead on the world with Minitel within the Nineteen Eighties, certainly Europe can free itself from Silicon Valley’s shackles now? | Alexander Hurst

In the Sixties, France grew to become the third nation, after the US and Soviet Union, to independently place a satellite tv for pc (Astérix) into orbit, and the one nation to ship an animal into area and – crucially, for Félicette the catstronaut – convey it again alive. A decade later, the Franco-British Concorde flicked passengers throughout the Atlantic in three and a half hours and the TGV started to propel them by the countryside first at 250km/h (155mph), after which 320km/h. Then, within the late Nineteen Eighties, the French area company designed a crewed spaceplane, Hermès, that corrected for the Nasa area shuttle’s vulnerability by being built-in into its launch automobile somewhat than perched atop it.