A few months ago, talking about the numerical revolution, Jacques Chirac evoked the danger of a growing gap, even of a fracture, between the regions, between North and South, in economical and cultural terms. This specter has not yet provoked a coordinated answer from the international authorities (UNESCO, UNDP, etc.). This article investigates how the present technical revolution and the dangers it brings forth are understood by state actors in a period in which the needs are booming (the predictions are that the volume of data conveyed will be 20 times as important in 2003 as it was in 2000) and in which offering easy access to the Web to everyone has become urgent. – Summary AFRI-2002