This point of view, while purely personal, seems increasingly to be in tune with the thinking of the intellectual elites on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. They do not question the need to promote the Mediterranean space as part of the globalisation process. They even recommend that it be treated as a laboratory for a humanised version of international relations, through a harmonious and equitable co­development process which aims to head off a collision between the developed societies on the northern shores and the precarious societies of the south.