  With the exception of gravitation, the known fundamental interactions of
Nature are mediated by gauge fields. A comparison of the candidate groups for a
gauge theory possibly describing gravitation favours the Poincar\'e group as
the obvious choice. This theory gives Einstein's equations in a particular
case, and Newton's law in the static non-relativistic limit, being seemingly
sound at the classical level. But it comes out that it is not quantizable. The
usual procedure of adding counterterms to make it a consistent and
renormalizable theory leads to two possible theories, one for each of the two
de Sitter groups, SO(4,1) and SO(3,2). The consequences of changing from the
Poincar\'e to the de Sitter group, as well as the positive aspects,
perspectives and drawbacks of the resulting theory are discussed.
