Jacques Nikonoff
Jacques Nikonoff | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 27 January 1952 |
| Organization(s) | Un travail pour chacun (Work for everyone) Attac |
| Political party | Parti de la Démondialisation (De-globalization Party) |
| Academic career | |
| Alma mater | University of Vincennes in Saint-Denis Paris Institute of Political Studies École nationale d'administration |
Jacques Nikonoff (born 1952) is a French economist and senior civil servant, active in anti-globalization and sovereigntism movements.
Early life and education
[edit]Jacques Nikonoff was born on 27 January 1952 in Suresnes, Seine, France. His grandparents were Russian immigrants, while his parents were members of the French Communist Party. After completing his high school education, he worked as a welder at the Norton abrasive paper manufacturing factory, in La Courneuve.[1]
During his time there, he joined the communist party (PCF) as well as the CGT communist union, whose ranks he rose until he was fired in 1981. During his time out of employment, Nikonoff studied educational sciences in the University of Vincennes in Saint-Denis, after passing the special exam for non-bachelor's degree holders. At the same time, he undertook formateur studies at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers[n 1] and started working in the Aulnay-sous-Bois mayoral program for young people's social integration in the banlieues. He also studied works of literature, history, and politics. After the election of UMP member Jean-Claude Abrioux as mayor, Nikonoff was fired. He continued his studies at the Paris Institute of Political Studies and, in 1984, passed the entrance exam for the École nationale d'administration, upon which time, he resigned from the PCF.[1]
Academic and civil service career
[edit]After completing his academic studies, Nikonoff joined the Caisse des dépôts et consignations, the Deposits and Consignments Fund of the French state. He represented the fund in the United States as a financial attaché to the U.S. Treasury.[2]
Political career
[edit]In 1993, Nokonoff creates the movement Un Travail pour Chacun or UTC (Work for Everyone), which prioritizes the mobilization against unemployment.[3] The
In 1999, Robert Hue, the general secretary of the communist party, invites back Nikonoff who serves, between 1999 and 2001, in the direction of the PCF.[1] He will leave a few years later, in 2004, to lead Attac or Association pour la Taxation des Transactions financières et pour l'Action Citoyenne (Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and Citizen's Action),[n 2] though he will continue to participate in various party events about the economy and France's part in the European Community.[4] Nikonoff leaves Attac in 2006.
In a May 2005 article in Le Monde, he advocates for a new structure of European unification, rejecting EU's current structure and the course undertaken, and suggests that only France & Germany, along with the Benelux countries aim at a "true unification."[5] In the same article, he denounced the "Atlanticist" tendency of most new EU members and the Union itself.
In 2008, at the initiative of Nikonoff and militants and activists of the French left and anti-globalization movements, the Mouvement politique d’éducation populaire or M'PEP ("Political Movement for the People's Education") is created, a "non-political", "grass roots" organization, which, nonetheless, endorses electorally the Left Front.[6]
Discourse on the Eurozone and the European Union
[edit]The initiatives of both Attac and M'PEP have been denounced by sections of the Left as utopian reformism with "false solutions."[7]
As Marxist economist Costas Lapavitsas, supporting Grexit during his country's government-debt crisis, argued that without an exit from the Eurozone Greece cannot aspire to an economic recovery or the elimination of its debt burden,[8] Nikonoff proclaimed that France should exit the Eurozone since the common currency has "demonstrably" failed as a "shield" against speculation and as the "almost miraculous means" of overcoming inflation, unemployment, recession, and so on.[9] Professor of Economics at the University of Greenwich Marxist economist Michel Husson denounced both the notion of Grexit as a cure-all for the Greek crisis, and, more importantly, the view that, in general, "leaving the Euro could in itself improve the relationship of forces in favor of the workers,"[10] characterizing it as "a fundamental error of analysis."[11]
In January 2017, a few months before the presidential election, Marine LePen, leader of the far-right National Rally party, declared that France should leave the Eurozone, though without leaving the European Union.[12] Nikonoff commented on LePen's position by highlighting the "significant" differences of his proposals, as already presented in his booklet La confrontation: argumentaire anti-FN (The Confrontation: Anti-NF[n 3] Argument).[13]
Personal life
[edit]Nikonoff is married and has three children.[2]
See also
[edit]Notes
[edit]- ^ A formateur, in France, is the competent person who teaches new skills to adults.
- ^ Attac started as a pressure group with the aim of having a Tobin tax legislated. The economist himself denounced the group's use of his name, stating he opposes their aims. Eventually, Attac gravitated towards the demand for France to regain its fiscal and monetary sovereignty.
- ^ At the time, the National Rally party was still named National Front.
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Lebegue, Thomas (2 December 2002). "Jacques Nikonoff, un énarque président" [Jacques Nikonoff, a president from ENA]. Libération (in French). Retrieved 24 December 2024.
- ^ a b "Jacques Nikonoff, le successeur" [Jacques Nikonoff, the successor]. Le Monde (in French). 30 November 2002. Retrieved 24 December 2024.
- ^ Guinet, Jean (January 1997). "Un travail pour tous: Entretien avec Jacques Nikonoff" [Work for Everyone: Jacques Nikonoff interview]. Revue Quart Monde (in French). 161 (1). Retrieved 24 December 2024.
La société dans son ensemble doit dépasser les clivages traditionnels et se dresser contre cette barbarie économique. C'est une question de survie. Nous appelons à un compromis national, de portée historique, sur l'emploi. [Society as a whole must surpass the traditional divisions and stand up to this economic barbarism. It is a question of survival. We call for a national compromise, of historical importance, on employment.]
- ^ E.g. "Fête de la Liberté" [Freedom Festivities] (PDF). Parti Communiste Français (in French). 2014. Retrieved 24 December 2024.
- ^ Nikonoff, Jacques (23 May 2005). "La fin programmée de l'Union européenne" [The planned end of the European Union]. Le Monde (in French). Archived from the original on 23 May 2015. Retrieved 24 December 2024.
- ^ "Comment sortir de l'Euro et de l'Union européenne ?" [How to get out of the Euro and the European Union]. Initiative Communiste (in French). 30 April 2005. Retrieved 24 December 2024.
- ^ E.g. "L'altermondialisme d'ATTAC : une contestation respectueuse et réformiste" [Attac's alter-globalization movement: a respectful and reformist protest]. Lutte Ouvrière (in French). 1 October 2003. Retrieved 24 December 2024.
Il est impossible de rationaliser le marché mondial et encore moins de l'humaniser, car ce serait enrayer le développement du capitalisme dont chaque trust produit à l'échelle internationale. [It is impossible to rationalize the world market and even less to humanize it, because that would halt the development of capitalism, which each trust produces on an international scale.]
- ^ Lapavitsas, Costas (16 April 2011). "A left strategy for Europe". Greek Left Review.
- ^ Nikonoff, Jacques (27 April 2011). Sortons de l'euro! : Restituer la souveraineté monétaire au peuple [Let's get out of the Euro! : Regaining the people's monetary sovereignty] (in French). Fayard. ISBN 978-2755506013.
- ^ Husson, Michel (1 August 2015). "La «bonne drachme»? Modeste contribution au débat sur la Grèce" [The «good drachma»? Modest contribution to the debate on Greece]. Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt (in French). Retrieved 27 December 2024.
La sortie de l'euro est presque toujours présentée comme une sorte de baguette magique permettant d'échapper à la domination du capitalisme financier, ainsi qu'aux contradictions internes entre capital et travail. Comme si la sortie de l'euro équivalait à la sortie des politiques néo-libérales. Cette fixation sur la question de la monnaie est donc dangereuse dans la mesure où elle fait passer au second rang toute une série d'enjeux qui ont à voir avec des rapports de classes qui ne s'arrêtent pas aux frontières. [Leaving the Euro is almost always presented as a kind of magic wand that allows us to escape the domination of financial capitalism, as well as the internal contradictions between capital and labor. As if leaving the Euro were equivalent to leaving neoliberal policies. This fixation on the question of currency is therefore dangerous insofar as it relegates to second place a whole series of issues that have to do with class relations that do not stop at the border.]
- ^ Fidler, Richard (17 August 2015). "Greece: Was, and Is There, an Alternative?". International Viewpoint. Retrieved 24 December 2024.
- ^ "FN leader Le Pen calls for France to leave euro but stay linked". BBC. 4 January 2017. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
- ^ Nikonoff, Jacques (2012). "La confrontation" [The Confrontation]. Le Temps de Cerises (in French). Retrieved 27 December 2024.
La version d'extrême-droite de la sortie de l'euro enfoncerait davantage encore le pays dans la crise et s'oppose radicalement à la sortie par la gauche que je préconise. [The far-right version of leaving the Euro would push the country further into crisis and is radically opposed to the exit from the Left that I advocate.]
Further reading
[edit]- Lapavitsas, Costas (2018). The Left Case Against the EU. Polity. ISBN 9781509531066.
The creation of the [European Monetary Union] allowed Germany to implement a neo-mercantilist policy of keeping domestic demand weak by suppressing wages, while seeking growth by ensuring external surpluses. Through its surpluses, the country sucked in demand from across Europe in the 2000s, and has done so across the world in the 2010s. [It] has...placed France and Italy in an impossible predicament.
External links
[edit]- Nikonoff, Jacques (8 December 2006). "Le sens des responsabilités" [The sense of responsibilities]. Avenir d'Attac (in French). Archived from the original on 8 December 2006. Retrieved 24 December 2024.
L'expérience a montré qu'aucune victoire importante n'était possible sans les classes populaires. Sans elles, nous avons perdu le mouvement sur les retraites et l'assurance-maladie ; avec elles, nous avons gagné contre le TCE et le Contrat premier emploi. Sans une alliance entre les couches moyennes, les classes populaires et les « sans », le mouvement altermondialiste s'essoufflera. ['Experience has shown that no major victory is possible without the working classes. Without them, we lost the movement on pensions and health insurance; with them, we won in the TCE [the 2005 French European Constitution referendum] and the First Employment Contract. Without an alliance between the middle classes, the working classes, and the "have-nots", the alter-globalization movement will run out of steam.']
- Ypi, Lea (22 November 2018). "There is no left-wing case for Brexit: 21st century socialism requires transnational organization". London School of Economics. Retrieved 24 December 2024.
This is neither 'leave' nor 'reform': it is 'transform'. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to how the project can become appealing to European citizens, given the current predicament. Matters of tactic and strategy will be different in different member states. Socialism in the 20th century took a civic nationalist form. Socialism in the 21st century can only be transnational.