© Jean-Pierre Muller
Economist Jean-Paul Fitoussi speaking at a Socialist Party meeting in La Rochelle, August 27, 2011.
Jean-Paul Fitoussi died at the age of 79 and was buried this Friday in Levallois-Perret (Hauts-de-Seine). A graduate of the University of Strasbourg where he then taught, this economist claimed to belong to the Keynesian school. He was then one of the pillars of the teaching of economics at Sciences-Po Paris. “In the 80s and 90s you had the choice between two eco teachers: Michel Pébereau [longtemps PDG de BNP, ndlr] who embodied liberal thought and Jean-Paul Fitoussi”, remembers Jean-Hervé Lorenzi, founder of the Circle of economists, a think tank which organizes the economic meetings of Aix-en-Provence each year.
One of his teaching colleagues for twenty years, Henri Sterdyniak, recalls his work on unemployment and inflation, as well as his positions against high interest rates. “His theory was that unemployment and inflation should be analyzed holistically.” The creation of the French Economic Conjunctures Office (OFCE) in 1981, which he chaired for twenty years, enabled the economy to take its place in the political debate. “With Joseph Stiglitz, he convinced Nicolas Sarkozy to look less at the gross domestic product and to integrate environmental and social indices”, recalls Henri Sterdyniak. This idea will also be taken up in the concept of social and environmental responsibility (CSR) which today leads investors, small or large, not to decide solely on the basis of the financial profitability of an asset.
Jean-Paul Fitoussi was a Keynesian of the classical school “in the sense that he favors the notion of demand and regulation of the economic cycle, but he was also attentive to the questions of economic sovereignty and deindustrialization on which he notably sensitized Arnaud Montebourg”, explains Philippe Aghion, economist and professor at the College de France.
independent thinking
In 1993, before the advent of the euro and during the debate on the strong franc launched by the governor of the Banque de France at the time, Jean-Claude Trichet, Jean-Paul Fitoussi was among those who opposed this notion since it assumes that interest rates remain high, resulting in a surge in unemployment. “He then had a major role against the mainstream that existed in 1993. We must not forget that for a long time, many economists were financial inspectors. There was no academic debate,” notes Jean-Hervé Lorenzi.
Moreover, Jean-Paul Fitoussi’s field of action is not limited to France. He was the secretary general of the International Association of French-Speaking Economists before teaching at the European University Institute in Florence. Placed rather on the left on the political spectrum, he had the ear of leaders of all persuasions and in particular of Nicolas Sarkozy who had asked him to take part in 2008, in the company of twenty-two experts, in the work of the Commission on the measurement of economic performance.
At the head of the OFCE, Jean-Paul Fitoussi nevertheless wanted to preserve independent thinking and analysis. “When our writings displeased the governments in place, he defended us”, remembers the economist Henri Sterdyniak.