Jacques Attali (polytechnician and ENA graduate) was State Counsellor, professor at several universities and grandes écoles, special adviser to French President François Mitterrand, and then president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). In 1997, he chaired the Commission for the Reform of Higher Education, then in 2008, the Commission for the Liberation of French Growth. He is the founder of the humanitarian organization Action Against Hunger and Eureka. He heads the firm Attali & Associés and the NGO Positiv.
He is a columnist for several newspapers and is the author of more than eighty books, including studies, essays, biographies, plays, and novels, in which he presents his vision – often premonitory – of the challenges of the contemporary world. Several of his books have been reviewed by the Turgot Club.