Philippe Simonnot (10 July 1941 – 17 November 2022) was a French economist and journalist.
Simonnot earned a doctorate in economic sciences from the
University of Aix-Marseille and was the author of numerous books on economics.[1][2] He occasionally published chronicles in the press, such as in Le Figaro and Le Monde.
Simonnot died on 17 November 2022, at the age of 81.[3]
Journalist
Simonnot was an economic journalist specializing on the oil market for Le Monde, where he published an article on the
Elf Aquitaine in 1976. The article led him to be fired, about which he published a book on the functions of the newspaper's director
Jacques Fauvet [
fr] and, more broadly, the entire profession of journalism, titled Le Monde et le pouvoir.
In 1988, while working as an economic journalist for the weekly news magazine Politis, he developed a theory in which Homo sportivus was replaced by Homo economicus.[4]
Economist
Simonnot closely researched monetary issues. Faced with the crises of the end of the
Bretton Woods system and the introduction of
floating exchange rates, he advocated for the return to a precious metal backing of the US dollar or the euro.[5] He strongly criticized government and favored the
physiocrats. He directed the Observatoire économique de la Méditerranée and the Atelier de l'économie contemporaine, as well as the monetary seminar of the liberal think tank Institut Turgot.