Jacques José Mardoché Attali (; born 1 November 1943) is a French economic and
social theorist, writer,
political adviser
Political consulting is a form of consulting that consists primarily of advising and assisting political campaigns. Although the most important role of political consultants is arguably the development and production of mass media (largely tele ...
and senior civil servant, who served as a counselor to President
François Mitterrand
François Marie Adrien Maurice Mitterrand (26 October 19168 January 1996) was President of France, serving under that position from 1981 to 1995, the longest time in office in the history of France. As First Secretary of the Socialist Party, ...
from 1981 to 1991, and was the first head of the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development from 1991 to 1993. In 1997, upon the request of education minister
Claude Allègre, he proposed a reform of the higher education degrees system. From 2008 to 2010, he led the government committee on how to ignite the growth of the French economy, under President
Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa (; ; born 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2007 to 2012.
Born in Paris, he is of Hungarian, Greek Jewish, and French origin. Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Se ...
.
Attali co-founded the European program
EUREKA, dedicated to the development of new technologies. He also founded the non-profit organization PlaNet Finance, now called Positive Planet, and is the head of Attali & Associates (A&A), an international consultancy firm on strategy, corporate finance and venture capital. Interested in the arts, he has been nominated to serve on the board of the
Musée d’Orsay. He has published more than fifty books, including ''Verbatim'' (1981), ''
Noise: The Political Economy of Music'' (1985), ''Labyrinth in Culture and Society: Pathways to Wisdom'' (1999), and ''
A Brief History of the Future
''A Brief History of the Future'' is a speculative futurology book about the next 50 years by Jacques Attali. The original edition was published by Fayard in 2006.
Themes
History
The first third of the book retraces Human history from prehi ...
'' (2006).
In 2009, ''
Foreign Policy'' called him as one of the top 100 "global thinkers" in the world.
Early life
Jacques Attali was born on 1 November 1943 in Algiers (Algeria), with his twin brother Bernard Attali, in a
Jewish family. His father, Simon Attali, is a self-educated person who achieved success in
perfumery ("Bib et Bab" shop) in Algiers. He married Fernande Abécassis on 27 January 1943. On 11 February 1954, his mother gave birth to his sister, Fabienne. In 1956, two years after the beginning of the Algerian independence war (1954–1962), his father decided to move to Paris with his family.
Jacques and Bernard studied at the
Lycée Janson-de-Sailly, in the 16th arrondissement, where they met
Jean-Louis Bianco and
Laurent Fabius. In 1966, Jacques graduated from the
École polytechnique (first of the class of 1963). He also graduated from the
École des mines,
Sciences Po
, motto_lang = fr
, mottoeng = Roots of the Future
, type = Public university, Public research university''Grande école''
, established =
, founder = Émile Boutmy
, a ...
and the
École nationale d'administration (third of the class of 1970).
In 1968, while doing an internship at the prefecture of a French department (
Nièvre), he met for the second time with
François Mitterrand
François Marie Adrien Maurice Mitterrand (26 October 19168 January 1996) was President of France, serving under that position from 1981 to 1995, the longest time in office in the history of France. As First Secretary of the Socialist Party, ...
, then President of the department, whom he had met for the first time three years before.
in 1972, Attali received a PhD in economics from
University Paris Dauphine, for a thesis written under the supervision of
Alain Cotta Alain may refer to:
People
* Alain (given name), common given name, including list of persons and fictional characters with the name
* Alain (surname)
* "Alain", a pseudonym for cartoonist Daniel Brustlein
* Alain, a standard author abbreviation u ...
.
Michel Serres
Michel Serres (; 1 September 1930 – 1 June 2019) was a French philosopher, theorist and writer. His works explore themes of science, time and death, and later incorporated prose.
Life and career
The son of a bargeman, Serres entered France's ...
was among the jury of his PhD.
In 1970, when he was 27, he became a member of the
Council of State. In 1972, aged 29, he published his first two books, ''Analyse économique de la vie politique'' and ''Modèles politiques'', for which he was awarded with a prize from the Academy of Sciences.
Academic career
Jacques Attali taught economics from 1968 to 1985 at the
Paris Dauphine University, at the École polytechnique and at the
École des Ponts et chaussées.
In his laboratory in Dauphine, the IRIS, he gathered several young researchers
Yves Stourdzé
Yves Stourdzé (1947 – December 1986) was a French sociologist. He studied technical and institutional conditions for innovation and how acceptable the effects of these are on society. He has also produced one of the most pertinent analyses of t ...
(who ran the European research program
EUREKA co-founded by Jacques Attali),
Jean-Hervé Lorenzi, and
Érik Orsenna
Érik Orsenna is the pen-name of Érik Arnoult (born 22 March 1947) a French politician and novelist. After studying philosophy and political science at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris ("Sciences Po"), Orsenna specialized in econom ...
, but also leading figures in various fields (including journalism, mathematics, show business, financial analysis).
Political career
Attali's close collaboration with François Mitterrand started in December 1973. He directed his political campaign for the presidential elections in 1974. He then became his main chief of staff in the opposition. In 1981, François Mitterrand, after he was elected President, named Attali as his special adviser. From this moment on, Jacques Attali wrote notes every evening for the attention of the French President, which dealt with economics, culture, politics, or the last book he read. He also attended all the Cabinet meetings, the Defense Council, and all bilateral meetings between President François Mitterrand and foreign heads of States and governments. The President also entrusted him with the role of "sherpa" (personal representative of a head of State) for the European and G7 summits.
Attali then enlarged his circle of acquaintances to
Raymond Barre,
Jacques Delors,
Philippe Séguin
Philippe Séguin (21 April 1943 – 7 January 2010) was a French political figure who was President of the National Assembly from 1993 to 1997 and President of the Cour des Comptes of France from 2004 to 2010.
He entered the Court of Financia ...
,
Jean-Luc Lagardère, Antoine Riboud,
Michel Serres
Michel Serres (; 1 September 1930 – 1 June 2019) was a French philosopher, theorist and writer. His works explore themes of science, time and death, and later incorporated prose.
Life and career
The son of a bargeman, Serres entered France's ...
,
Coluche. He advised the President to get Jean-Louis Bianco,
Alain Boublil and several young, promising graduates from the École nationale d’administration (like
François Hollande and
Ségolène Royal) to join his team.
In 1982, he pleaded for "economic rigour". As "sherpa" of Mitterrand during 10 years, he organised the Versailles G7 summit in 1982 and the G7 Summit of the Arch in 1989. He took an active part in the organization of the celebrations for the bicentenary of the French Revolution on 14 July 1989.
In 1997, upon the request of
Claude Allègre, he proposed a reform of the tertiary education degree system which led to the implementation of the LMD model.
In 2008 and 2010, he was asked by then President
Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa (; ; born 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2007 to 2012.
Born in Paris, he is of Hungarian, Greek Jewish, and French origin. Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Se ...
to chair a bipartisan commission aiming at proposing reforms to foster French economic growth. In 2013, Attali advocated the concept of positive economy in a report delivered to President
François Hollande at his request. His ideas inspired some of the provisions of the law proposed by
Emmanuel Macron, Minister of Economy.
In April 2011, in Washington, D.C., the
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the United States'
Smithsonian Institution presented the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service to Attali.
Attali has supported
Rattachism
Rattachism (french: Rattachisme, , "reattach-ism") or Reunionism (''Réunionisme'') is a minor political ideology which calls for the French-speaking part of Belgium or Wallonia to secede from Belgium and become part of France. Brussels, which ...
.
He is often credited with having spotted Emmanuel Macron and enabling him to become President of the French Republic. Indeed, he was the one who discovered him while he was an investment banker at Rotschild & Co., and then introduced him to François Hollande, proposing that he become Minister of Economy.
International career
In 1979, Attali co-founded the international NGO
Action Against Hunger (''Action Contre La Faim'').
In 1984, he helped implement the European program
EUREKA, dedicated to the "development of new technologies", the direction of which he entrusted to
Yves Stourdzé
Yves Stourdzé (1947 – December 1986) was a French sociologist. He studied technical and institutional conditions for innovation and how acceptable the effects of these are on society. He has also produced one of the most pertinent analyses of t ...
.
In January 1989, he initiated a vast international plan of action against the disastrous flooding in Bangladesh.
In August 1989, during François Mitterrand's second mandate, Jacques Attali gave up politics and left the Elysée Palace. He founded the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), in London, and became its first president. He had initiated the idea of this institution in June 1989, before the
fall of the Berlin Wall, in order to support the reconstruction of Eastern European countries. He chaired the Paris negotiating conference which led to the creation of the EBRD. Under his leadership, the EBRD promoted investments which aimed at protecting nuclear power plants, protecting the environment and, more generally, developing infrastructure, reinforcing private sector competitiveness and support transition to democracy.
In 1991, Attali invited
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
to the EBRD headquarters, in London, against the opinion of British Prime Minister
John Major
Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament ...
. By doing so, he compelled the heads of government of the G7, who were attending a summit in this town, to receive the Soviet head of state. After a stormy phone call between Jacques Attali and John Major, the British press started to criticize Attali and spread suspicions about his management of the institution. Uncontested details of the management of the EBRD – including of inefficiency and profligacy – were shocking. Some of these details were taken up by some French journalists. Attali explains his stance in a chapter of his book ''C'était François Mitterrand'', entitled "Verbatim and the EBRD": "the work in question had been done under the supervision of an international working group to which I did not belong". Indeed, when Attali left the EBRD (voluntarily) the board of governors gave him final discharge for the management of the institution. However, his reputation never recovered.
In 1993, Attali won a libel suit; he had been accused of having reproduced in his book ''Verbatim'', without François Mitterrand's authorization, secret archives and several sentences of the French head of State which were meant for another book. The ''Herald Tribune'' even published, on the front page, an article claiming (wrongly) that President Mitterrand had asked for the book to be withdrawn from sale. François Mitterrand confirmed in a long interview that he had asked Attali to write this book, and acknowledged that he had proofread it and had been given the possibility to make corrections.
In 1998, Attali founded Positive Planet, a non-profit organization which is active in more than 80 countries, employing over 500 staff, and provides funding, technical assistance and advisory services to microfinance players and stakeholders. Positive Planet is also active in France empoverished suburbs.
In 2001 Attali was subject to investigations on the charges of "concealment of company assets which have been misused and influence peddling". He was discharged on 27 October 2009 by the magistrate's court of Paris, "on the benefit of the doubt".
Attali advocates the establishment of a global
rule of law
The rule of law is the political philosophy that all citizens and institutions within a country, state, or community are accountable to the same laws, including lawmakers and leaders. The rule of law is defined in the ''Encyclopedia Britannica ...
, which will condition the survival of democracy through the creation of a new global order. He thinks the regulation of the economy by a global financial supervisory institution may be a solution to the financial crisis which started 2008. The financial institution is a first step towards the establishment of a democratic
world government, of which the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been ...
can be a laboratory, which was all laid to bare in his 1981 book ''Verbatim''.
Private financial career
In 1994, he founded Attali & Associates (A&A), an international advisory firm which specializes in strategy consulting, corporate finance and venture capital to help companies' long-term development.
In 2012, Attali became a member of the supervisory board of Kepler Capital Markets, a Swiss broker based in Geneva. The same year,
Crédit Agricole sold Cheuvreux, which employs about 700 people worldwide, to Kepler Capital Markets.
He presides over the supervisory board of Slate.fr.
Music and arts
In September 2010, Attali was appointed as a member of the directorate of the
Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art ...
.
Attali has a passion for music: he plays the piano (he once played for the association
Les Restos du CÅ“ur), and wrote lyrics for
Barbara
Barbara may refer to:
People
* Barbara (given name)
* Barbara (painter) (1915–2002), pseudonym of Olga Biglieri, Italian futurist painter
* Barbara (singer) (1930–1997), French singer
* Barbara Popović (born 2000), also known mononymously as ...
. He is the author of the book ''Bruits'' (1977) (English: ''
Noise: The Political Economy of Music''), an essay which deals with the economy of music and the importance of music in the evolution of our societies.
In 1978, he played himself in ''Pauline et l'ordinateur'', directed by Francis Fehr.
Since 2003, he directs the
Grenoble University orchestra, open to amateurs, under Patrick Souillot. He performed very different pieces, which ranged from a symphony composed by Benda to Bach's violin concertos, a mass composed by Mozart, Barber's Adagio and Mendelssohn's double concerto for violin, piano and orchestra. In 2012, he conducted the ''Musiques en scène orchestra'', performing the opening of the
Barber of Sevilla
''The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution'' ( it, Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L'inutile precauzione ) is an ''opera buffa'' in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based ...
and co-directed the
Lamoureux Orchestra with his friend, the geneticist Daniel Cohen, during the gala of
Technion University, in Paris. He also directed the Lausanne Sinfonietta in August and Ravel's Concerto in G with the
Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra in Jerusalem and then in Paris. He also directed orchestra in Shanghai, Bondy, Marseille, London and Astana.
With Patrick Souillot, he created in 2012 a national organization following the model of the Fabrique Opéra Grenoble, which aims at coordinating the production of cooperative operas with the participation of students from vocational highschools.
Reflections on growth and positive economics
Commission for the Liberation of French Growth, known as "Attali Commission"
On 24 July 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy appointed Attali to chair a bipartisan commission charged with studying "the bottlenecks that constrain growth". It was composed of 42 members, freely appointed by Attali, mostly liberals and social democrats. Its unanimous report was handed over to the President on 23 January 2008. It contained various recommendations to radically transform the French economy and society in order to unlock economic growth.
Commission for "Positive Economics"
In 2012, French President François Hollande ordered from Attali a report on the "
positive economics" situation. The aim of this report was to put an end to the short-termism, to move from an individualistic economy based on the short-term to an economy based on
public interest and the interest of future generations, to organize the transition from an old model based on the wealth economy to a model in which economic agents will have other obligations than
profit maximization
In economics, profit maximization is the short run or long run process by which a firm may determine the price, input and output levels that will lead to the highest possible total profit (or just profit in short). In neoclassical economics, w ...
. This report, written by a wide-ranging commission, proposed 44 reforms.
Literary work
The literary work of Attali covers a wide range of topics and almost every possible subject in the field of literature: mathematics, economic theory, essays, novels, biographies, memoirs, children's stories, and theater. It is probably difficult to find a common thread in his work.
All of his essays revolve around the daunting task of describing the future from a long-term analysis of the past. In order to accomplish this, he undertook the task of retelling the story of human activity and its various dimensions: music, time, property, France, nomadic life, health, the seas, modernity, global governance, love and death (''Bruits, Histoires du temps, La nouvelle économie française, Chemin de sagesse, Au propre et au figuré, l'ordre cannibale, Consolations, l’homme nomade, Amours, Histoire de la modernité, Demain qui gouvernera le monde , Histoires de la mer'').
He has also put forward several readers (''Lignes d'horizon'', ''Brève histoire de l'avenir'', ''Vivement après demain'') and several publications on analytical methods (''Analyse économique de la vie politique'', ''Modèles politiques'', ''Les trois mondes'', ''La figure de Fraser'', ''Peut-on prévoir l'avenir ?'').
His work reveals a distinct vision of history and its successive stages, which are simultaneously ideological, technological and geopolitical. Furthermore, his work entails depicting the slow transformation of humanity into an artifact in which man becomes an object to escape death, and the geopolitical evolution toward chaos that accompanies such transformation; meanwhile, man is also waiting for an awakening leading to a new global governance, a sanctification of the essential makeup of mankind, taking into account the interest of future generations, and not letting prostheses invade it.
Attali has also, in books written during key events, tried to highlight particular moments of the present and the near future (''La crise et après ?'', ''Tous ruinés dans dix ans ?,'' ''Économie de l'apocalypse'') and he proposed reforms to implement, either in books he authored (''Candidats, répondez !, Urgences françaises'') or in collective reports (''Rapport sur l'évolution de l'enseignement supérieur'', ''sur la libération de la croissance, sur l'économie positive, sur la francophonie'').
Attali also reflected on the future of the concepts of
socialism
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...
and
altruism (''La voie humaine'', ''Fraternités'') and advocated methods of personal growth (''Survivre aux crises'', ''Devenir soi'').
Since his earliest books, Attali foresaw and announced signals of the future, albeit weak at the time, that later came true: In ''La parole et l'outil'' (1976), he announced and described the shift from an energy-based society to an information-based society. In ''Bruits'', in 1977, he announced what would later be the internet, YouTube, and the importance of musical practice; in ''La nouvelle économie française'', in 1978, he discussed the coming emergence of the personal computer,
hyper-surveillance
Hyper surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens that specifically utilizes technology and security breaches to access information. As the reliance on ...
and self-surveillance. In ''Les trois mondes'', in 1980, he announced the shift of the centre of power around the Pacific. In ''L'ordre Cannibale'', in 1980, he announced the advent of a prosthetic society, now known as
transhumanism. In ''Histoires du temps'', he announced the rapid pace of history and the growing immediacy of relationships. In ''Amours'', he announced the emergence of poly-romantic relationships. In ''Au propre et au figuré'', he announced the break-up of property and its use, and subsequently he invented the concept of the "nomadic object." In ''Lignes d'horizons'', in 1990, he predicted the relative decline of US power. In ''Brève histoire de l'avenir'', he announced a corporate power grab by health data and insurance companies. In ''L'homme nomade'', he described the great movement of populations whose sedentary life was only a temporary stage.
Attali has reflected on the many dimensions, as well as the place, of Jewish thought and the Jewish people in history (''1492'', ''Histoire économique du peuple juif'', ''Dictionnaire amoureux du judaïsme''); he also took on this subject at the theatre in ''Du cristal à la fumée''.
He also reflected on inter-religious dialogue (''La confrérie des Eveillés'' and ''Naissance de l'Occident'').
The focus of his biographical publishing is on retelling the lives of characters who disrupted world history by the strength of their ideas: Warburg, Pascal, Marx, Gandhi, Diderot, and all those for whom he wrote a short biography in ''Phares'', such as Averroes, Aristotle, Maimonides, Thomas Aquinas, Giordano Bruno, Darwin.
Attali's novels, mostly categorized in fantasy genre, or at least in the slight dystopia subgenre, address the same themes. In particular, his novels revolve around the risks confronted by humanity, with characters anxious to hide, to disappear (''Nouvelles'', ''Les portes du ciel'', ''Le premier jour après moi'', ''Il viendra'', ''Notre vie disent- ils'').
More recently, he has chosen to combine crime novels with dystopia, imagining a reappearing police chief, whilst the action takes place in a near future period.
Attali has narrated some of the major events in which he was involved in several memoirs: first, in ''Verbatim 1, 2'' and ''3'', he kept, at the request of François Mitterrand, the daily newspaper in the years during Mitterrand's presidency. He also recounted his memories of the creation of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in ''Europe(s)'' and drew a portrait of François Mitterrand in ''C'était François Mitterrand'', from the twenty years he spent at his side.
Selected bibliography
*''Cannibalism and Civilization: Life and Death in the History of Medicine'' (1984)
*''
Noise: The Political Economy of Music'' (1985) Translated by
Brian Massumi. Foreword by
Fredric Jameson, afterword by
Susan McClary. University of Minnesota Press .
*''
A man of influence
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes'' ...
: Le destin d'un homme d'influence
S.G. Warburg'' (1987)
*''Millennium: Winners and Losers in the Coming Order'' (1992)
*''Europe(s)'' (1994)
*''Labyrinth in Culture and Society: Pathways to Wisdom'' (1999) Translated by Joseph Rowe. North Atlantic Books
*''Fraternités'' (1999)
*''Karl Marx or the thought of the world'' (2005) - original title: ''Karl Marx ou l'esprit du monde''
*''Les Juifs, le Monde et l'Argent, Histoire économique du peuple juif'' (2002) Fayard (''The Jews, the World and Money, an Economic History of the Jewish People'')
*''C'était François Mitterrand'' (2005) Fayard
*''
A Brief History of the Future
''A Brief History of the Future'' is a speculative futurology book about the next 50 years by Jacques Attali. The original edition was published by Fayard in 2006.
Themes
History
The first third of the book retraces Human history from prehi ...
'' (2006) Arcade Publishing - original title: ''Une Brève histoire de l'avenir''
*''La crise, et après ?'' (2008) Fayard
*''The economic history of the Jewish people'' (2010)
See also
*
Social innovation
*
Sound culture Sound studies is an interdisciplinary field that to date has focused largely on the emergence of the concept of "sound" in Western modernity, with an emphasis on the development of sound reproduction technologies. The field first emerged in venues l ...
*
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster
References
External links
Jacques Attali's home pageBiographyJacques Attali's Homepage (English)Jacques Attali's Blog pageJacques Attali's Blog page (English)Jacques Attali on Linkedin.com (English)Jacques Attali - Huffington Post (English)Books/Latest PublicationsTakes a critical stance on Attali's class position.
Jacques Attali interviewed by Angus Carlyle
{{DEFAULTSORT:Attali, Jacques
1943 births
Living people
Eureka (organisation)
People from Algiers
French people of Algerian-Jewish descent
20th-century French Sephardi Jews
French economists
Lycée Janson-de-Sailly alumni
École Polytechnique alumni
Mines ParisTech alumni
Corps des mines
Sciences Po alumni
École nationale d'administration alumni
Members of the Conseil d'État (France)
Paris Dauphine University alumni
French twins
Algerian twins
Presidents of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Sociomusicologists
Members of the Royal Academy of Belgium
French transhumanists