Le cap des 100 millions en Égypte. Discours de crise et stratégies à l’aune des changements environnementaux globaux

With more than 100 million inhabitants, Egypt is a demographic giant. Nowadays, the country wins one million inhabitants every 7 months and its population is extremely young: two thirds of Egyptians are less than 30 years old. In a country where 96% of the territory is desert land, this steady population growth is presented as alarming. Since the 1950s political statements and the media have elaborated a crisis narrative. Population growth is made responsible for all national wrongs: poverty, “development delay”, insecurity, illegal construction, etc. In a context of global environmental changes, this narrative gets a more environmentalist dimension. It insists on resource scarcity, particularly water and cultivable lands. This article leans on a press review and on interviews with dwellers from the Delta region to analyze the crisis narrative that put the blame on popular social classes. Being presented as a major issue and challenge, population growth led to public birth policies and to territorial policy of pioneer fronts in the desert, through land reclamation and new cities.