Economist Daniel Cohen, a figure in French academia and the author of numerous essays, died on Sunday at the age of 70, his publisher Albin Michel told AFP, confirming information from Le Monde newspaper.
Born in Tunis in 1953, the specialist in public debt, known to the general public for his interventions in the media, was notably President of the Paris School of Economics, an internationally recognized university center for economic research. Albin Michel expressed his “great sadness” to AFP.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne learned with “sadness” of the disappearance of Mr Cohen, whose “vision of the French economy and of the great revolutions, especially in the digital sphere, is missing from the public debate,” she explained on X (formerly Twitter). .
Economics Minister Bruno Le Maire praised him on the X as “a great economist, but also an outstanding educator, a pioneer of new ideas, a brilliant and convincing author”.
Daniel Cohen, whose last book “Homo numericus: The +civilization+ that iscoming” was published in 2022, was on the far left.
He had supported François Hollande in the 2012 presidential election and then Benoît Hamon in 2017, then seduced by his idea of universal income.