Une autoroute pour l’interdisciplinarité dans l’enseignement ?

Cet article prend appui sur le cas du projet d’autoroute A69 pour illustrer le besoin et les termes de possibles synergies interdisciplinaires en enseignement, en recherche et dans le débat public, dès lors qu’il est question de conflit environnemental autour d’un grand projet d’infrastruc...

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Glavni autor: Douai, Ali
Format: Article ou chapitre numérique
Jezik:Français
Izdano: 2026
Teme:
Online pristup:Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
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language Français
format Article ou chapitre numérique
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topic conflits à dimension environnementale
évaluation socio-économique
interdisciplinarité
projets d’infrastructure
raison d’impérative d’intérêt public majeur
valeurs
environmental conflicts
infrastructure projects
interdisciplinarity
overriding public interest
socio-economic assessment
values
spellingShingle conflits à dimension environnementale
évaluation socio-économique
interdisciplinarité
projets d’infrastructure
raison d’impérative d’intérêt public majeur
valeurs
environmental conflicts
infrastructure projects
interdisciplinarity
overriding public interest
socio-economic assessment
values
Douai, Ali
Une autoroute pour l’interdisciplinarité dans l’enseignement ?
topic_facet conflits à dimension environnementale
évaluation socio-économique
interdisciplinarité
projets d’infrastructure
raison d’impérative d’intérêt public majeur
valeurs
environmental conflicts
infrastructure projects
interdisciplinarity
overriding public interest
socio-economic assessment
values
description Cet article prend appui sur le cas du projet d’autoroute A69 pour illustrer le besoin et les termes de possibles synergies interdisciplinaires en enseignement, en recherche et dans le débat public, dès lors qu’il est question de conflit environnemental autour d’un grand projet d’infrastructure. Les tergiversations juridiques et économiques autour des notions de « raison impérative d’intérêt public majeur » et d’évaluation socio-économique ouvrent un espace pour des nouvelles façons d’appréhender, entre juristes et économistes, les modes de gouvernance de ce type de projets qui sont au cœur des controverses sur la transition socio-écologique.
author Douai, Ali
author_facet Douai, Ali
author_sort Douai, Ali
title Une autoroute pour l’interdisciplinarité dans l’enseignement ?
title_short Une autoroute pour l’interdisciplinarité dans l’enseignement ?
title_full Une autoroute pour l’interdisciplinarité dans l’enseignement ?
title_fullStr Une autoroute pour l’interdisciplinarité dans l’enseignement ?
title_full_unstemmed Une autoroute pour l’interdisciplinarité dans l’enseignement ?
title_sort une autoroute pour l’interdisciplinarité dans l’enseignement ?
publishDate 2026
container_title
container_issue
url https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://droit.cairn.info/revue-internationale-de-droit-economique-2025-2-page-27?lang=fr
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.3917/ride.392.0027
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spelling cairn-RIDE_392_0027RIDERevue internationale de droit économique https://droit.cairn.info/revue-internationale-de-droit-economique-2025-2-page-27?lang=fr https://doi.org/10.3917/ride.392.0027 Une autoroute pour l’interdisciplinarité dans l’enseignement ? Douai, Ali2026 conflits à dimension environnementaleévaluation socio-économiqueinterdisciplinaritéprojets d’infrastructureraison d’impérative d’intérêt public majeurvaleursenvironmental conflictsinfrastructure projectsinterdisciplinarityoverriding public interestsocio-economic assessmentvaluesfre Revue internationale de droit économique | t. XXXIV | 2 | 2026-04-20 | p. 27-38 | 1010-8831 RIDE_39274 Cet article prend appui sur le cas du projet d’autoroute A69 pour illustrer le besoin et les termes de possibles synergies interdisciplinaires en enseignement, en recherche et dans le débat public, dès lors qu’il est question de conflit environnemental autour d’un grand projet d’infrastructure. Les tergiversations juridiques et économiques autour des notions de « raison impérative d’intérêt public majeur » et d’évaluation socio-économique ouvrent un espace pour des nouvelles façons d’appréhender, entre juristes et économistes, les modes de gouvernance de ce type de projets qui sont au cœur des controverses sur la transition socio-écologique. This article uses the controversy surrounding the A69 motorway project between Castres and Toulouse as a lens to examine why interdisciplinarity must become central to teaching, research, and public debate when major infrastructure projects generate environmental conflict. The socio-ecological transition increasingly destabilises established disciplinary boundaries, not only in scientific inquiry but also in how knowledge is transmitted. Longstanding calls from ecological economics for interdisciplinary fertilisation have become even more urgent as climate change, biodiversity loss, and territorial inequalities collide with traditional models of development and governance. The A69 project crystallises many of these tensions. It reveals the limits of sectoral reasoning, the persistence of unexamined analytical assumptions, and the difficulty of governing large projects when environmental values, economic rationales, and legal constraints interact. The article therefore treats the A69 not only as a contested infrastructure project, but also as a pedagogical object through which interdisciplinary approaches to governance can be developed. The analysis combines three complementary perspectives. First, it draws on teaching experience in environmental governance within a multidisciplinary Master’s programme, where students analyse real-world conflicts to understand how economic, legal, and political instruments structure collective choices. Second, it mobilises the standpoint of an ecological economist critical of the systematic reliance on cost-benefit analysis to rationalise environmental decision-making. Third, it reflects the institutional perspective of academic leadership seeking to embed the socio-ecological transition into curricula while strengthening interdisciplinary pathways through flexible programme design. Against this background, the article reconstructs the dual trajectory of the A69: its legal pathway and its socio-economic assessment. Their separation already signals a governance problem. Legally, the project was declared of public utility and granted environmental authorisations allowing derogations from species protection rules on the basis of an “overriding public interest.” Several interim rulings authorised construction, citing time savings, safety, comfort, and territorial rebalancing. In February 2025, however, the Administrative Tribunal of Toulouse annulled these authorisations, arguing that the project did not meet the threshold of overriding public interest despite the advanced state of works. Although later appellate decisions reinstated the authorisations, this episode exposed deep uncertainties in how public interest is defined when biodiversity protection is involved. In parallel, the socio-economic evaluation that supported the project concluded that it generated positive net social value. Yet counter-expertise and opinions from the Environmental Authority highlighted strong sensitivities to traffic forecasts, questionable assumptions regarding tolls and the valuation of time, as well as the underestimation of environmental and climate costs. Rather than pacifying debate, these evaluations fueled controversy, as opponents and proponents mobilised competing figures without producing a shared understanding of the common good. The article argues that this disarticulation between legal reasoning and economic evaluation lies at the heart of the conflict. Socio-economic assessments are expected to objectify public interest, yet they leave aside values that are difficult to monetise, particularly biodiversity and long-term ecological integrity. The A69 litigation shows that judges may refuse to place such values into a simple cost-benefit balance, treating them instead as legally codified and, to some extent, incommensurable with aggregated economic gains. This is where the A69 becomes a “motorway” for interdisciplinarity. Economists, lawyers, and social scientists must jointly rethink how values are produced, compared, and debated in infrastructure governance. For teaching, this implies training students to work across economic modelling, legal categories, and democratic deliberation, rather than within isolated disciplinary frameworks. More broadly, the A69 case illustrates that environmental conflicts are not merely technical disputes, but political and epistemic ones, in which the plurality and incommensurability of values are constitutive of decision-making in the socio-ecological transition. Cairn restricted access