1 - Small municipalities as pillars of a civilizational shift
The hour of revenge has come. The Municipalities Counter-Attack, a sub-program conceived by Paul Elvere DELSART, emerges as the geo-economic, social, and political lever of the Green Empire of the East and the West - an Empire of regeneration, autonomy, and rebirth, spearheaded by the Think and Do Tank LE PAPILLON SOURCE EL4DEV. This bold mechanism is much more than a project of intermunicipal cooperation: it is the primary engine for financing LE PAPILLON SOURCE-certified infrastructures, true Templar commanderies of the 21st century, and epicenters of a new, green, transnational civilization. No longer do metropolises set the pace of the new world. It is the villages, the small municipalities long forgotten by major international dynamics, that now rise as the pillars of a civilizational transformation. The Municipalities Counter-Attack represents the empowerment of rural territories - a reconquest of their economic, environmental, and symbolic sovereignty. It marks the birth of a counter-power to the centralized global economic order - a counter-power founded on territorial solidarity, societal diplomacy, and collective intelligence. Concretely, this program enables municipalities with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants to unite within Societal-Oriented Economic Interest Groups, becoming co-owners and co-decision-makers of infrastructures such as the Vegetal Calderas and LE PAPILLON SOURCE agroclimatic complexes. These infrastructures act as ecological sanctuaries, centers of knowledge, economic catalysts, and spaces for cultural diplomacy. They redefine the very notion of public interest by integrating biodiversity, energy autonomy, innovative agricultural production, and educational tourism. This sub-program embodies a break: a break from local authorities' dependency on state aid, a break from top-down development models, a break from the neglect of rural areas. It inaugurates a horizontal geopolitics where each municipality becomes a global actor through transnational cooperation rooted in ethics and resilience. Through this initiative, small municipalities gain international visibility, financial self-sufficiency, and transformative power. They become launching points for rebuilding global governance based on humanity, the land, and shared knowledge. THE MUNICIPALITIES COUNTER-ATTACK is the triumph of the margins over the centers. It is the frontline of the new societal globalization. It heralds the rise of a new territorial order where each village is a fortress of the future, each mayor a strategist of renewal, each citizen a builder of civilization. The Green Empire of the East and the West flourishes where no one expected: in the heart of the countryside, in the rediscovered light of once-abandoned lands. This is the silent, peaceful, fertile uprising. This is the true springtime of the peoples.
2 - The return of Plato’s City-States
The small municipalities engaged in the sub-program The Municipalities Counter-Attack are not mere local partners - they are the key pieces in a geopolitical chess game of global scale. They do not simply play their role in an intermunicipal cooperation project; they strategically shift the center of gravity of power. Each municipality, each village becomes a rook, a bishop, a queen, advancing across the global chessboard with precision, collective intelligence, and long-term vision. In this grand narrative orchestrated by Paul Elvere DELSART, small municipalities embody a rebirth of Plato’s concept of the city-state. No longer just administrative entities subject to centralized diktats, they are once again becoming bastions of sovereignty - autonomous political units where economics, culture, governance, education, and ecology are reimagined through the lenses of justice, the common good, and collective wisdom. As in Plato’s Republic, each modern city-state - here, a municipality - represents an ideal of harmony among social forces. It becomes a living laboratory where citizens are educators, producers, managers, but above all, co-creators of their own destiny. In this new paradigm, the role of these municipalities goes far beyond local administration: they embody a new civilizational vision based on participation, autonomy, ethics, and spirituality. Thus, the Municipalities Counter-Attack sub-program reactivates ancient philosophical thought to address contemporary challenges. It transforms small municipalities into drivers of global transformation, levers of societal diplomacy, and guardians of the soul of a world in flux. This return of the city-state, in a context of transnational cooperation, reinvents the very idea of the nation - no longer a centralized block, but a constellation of interconnected autonomous communities, aware of their power and united by a shared vision of progress. The countryside takes its revenge, not through revolt, but through strategic intelligence. The Green Empire of the East and the West is built from the ground up, piece by piece, municipality by municipality. The king is no longer the sole master of the game: the board is now in the hands of the people.