2023-08-20 18:38:23
The tributes follow one another on the social networks since this Sunday afternoon, after the announcement of the death of Daniel Cohen. His “vision of the French economy and the great revolutions, in particular digital, will be missed in the public debate”, thus affirms Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on X (formerly Twitter).
The Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, hailed him “an immense economist, but also an outstanding pedagogue, a pioneer of new ideas, a brilliant and convincing author”, still on X. “Daniel Cohen combined rigor and a sense of pedagogy”, writes Roland Lescure, Minister Delegate in charge of Industry. “France today loses one of its most brilliant economists”, abounds Olivia Grégoire, Minister Delegate in charge of SMEs. “Daniel Cohen was not only a remarkably intelligent economist […]he was deeply humanist, committed, available, funny,” underlines Yannick Jadot, European Ecologist MP.
Born in Tunis in 1953, the professor at the Ecole Normale Supérieure was highly respected in academic, political and economic circles. Winner of the Economics Book Prize in 2000 for his work “Our modern times” (Flammarion, 2008) and in 2012 for “Homo Economicus, (lost) prophet of new times” (Albin Michel, 2012). He breaks with the theory of homo economicus – which considers that humans act in a perfectly rational way – to favor a multidisciplinary and anthropological approach to the economy. In his eyes and those of his disciples, all the social sciences should help to understand human behavior.
Sovereign debt specialist
Author of numerous books, he had recently published “Homo numericus. The ‘civilization’ that is coming” (Albin Michel, 2022), one of the events of the “non-fiction” edition last year. In this book, which will remain as a kind of intellectual testament, the founding member of the Paris School of Economics told how the digital revolution has changed our lives, for better or for worse. He also denounced the impoverishment of the white worker or the surveillance capitalism which are its corollaries, and showed that there could be a way to realize the utopia that it carried in germ.
He was also a specialist in sovereign debt. Last November, in the columns of “Echos”, he considered that France does not invest enough in its industry. In his eyes, “deindustrialization is a slow risk”. According to him, “the war in Ukraine reinforces the imperative of industrial sovereignty and will accelerate the movement because the strategic question becomes fundamental”.
Very present in the media, the economist was one of the regular guests of the Sunday program “L’Esprit public” by Patrick Cohen on France inter. He was also a member of the supervisory board of the newspaper “Le Monde” from 2010 to 2021, where he had published numerous analyzes but also a columnist for “L’Obs”. Many journalists have thus hailed the memory of “one of the most respected French economists”.
The tribute of the president of the Gracques, Bernard Spitz
“The disappearance of Daniel Cohen marks the mourning of an entire generation. That of the progressive modern left, open to the world and to the economy, that of the Rocardie of the Arcs and Gracques group, that of a whole school of academic thought at the highest level.
Daniel was a master in the noblest sense of the term: a master of thought, of teaching, of defending his ideas and his values, of transmitting his thoughts through his articles and his books, of inspiring the French University, of supporting so many its young students as the powerful of this world in the understanding of modern economics and finance.
His permanent enthusiasm, his vital energy, his qualities of heart, his family love: that was all that, Daniel.
All this and many other things. Daniel was a dear friend, our friend. We mourn him. »
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