Bernard Maris

Bernard Maris was a French economist, writer and journalist who was also a shareholder in Charlie Hebdo magazine. He was murdered on 7 January 2015, during the shooting at the headquarters of the magazine in Paris. He was born in Toulouse, France, on 23 September 1946. He graduated from Sciences Po Toulouse in 1968 and earned a doctorate in economics at the University of Toulouse I in 1975. He taught as an assistant professor then as a senior lecturer at the University of Toulouse I. In 1994, he became a full professor (Professeur des Universités) at the Institut d'Études Politiques in Toulouse. At the time of his death, he was a professor at the Institute of European studies of the University of Paris-VIII. He also taught microeconomics at the University of Iowa in the United States and the Central Bank of Peru. He wrote for various journals: Marianne, Le Nouvel Observateur, Le Figaro Magazine, Le Monde and Charlie Hebdo, in which he used the pen name "Oncle Bernard". At Charlie Hebdo, he was the Deputy Editorial Director until 2008. As its founder, during the rebirth of the title in 1992, he was an 11% shareholder. On the radio, he had a weekly column entitled J'ai tout compris à l'économie (I understood everything about economics), each Saturday on France Inter, and took part each Friday in a debate on topical economic issues with the economic journalist of Les Échos, Dominique Seux. He also presented on television, on the i-Télé channel, where he participated as a columnist in Y'a pas que le CAC (There's more than the CAC). He also regularly appeared on the programme C dans l'air on France 5. He was often presented as an alter-globalization activist, because of his earlier participation with the Scientific Council of ATTAC (Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and for Citizens' Action). He lived in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, and was a candidate in 2002 at the city-council elections of the 10th arrondissement of Paris for The Greens. He was also a candidate for the CFDT (French Democratic Confederation of Labour) in the 2009 elections for the Commission de la carte d'identité des journalistes professionnels (Commission for the identity card of professional journalists). He was initiated at Roger Leray lodge in Paris (Grand Orient de France) in 2008. He was killed, along with seven of his colleagues, two police officers, and two others on 7 January 2015 in the Charlie Hebdo shooting when armed gunmen stormed the Charlie Hebdo newspaper offices in Paris. He wrote several books on economics and society, such as L'Horreur économique (The Economic Horror), Antimanuel d'économie (Anti-manual of Economics), Lettre ouverte aux gourous de l'économie qui nous prennent pour des imbéciles (Open Letter to the Gurus of Economics Who Take Us for Fools), Marx, ô Marx, pourquoi m'as-tu abandonné? (Marx, Oh Marx, Why Have You Abandoned Me?), Houellebecq économiste (Houellebecq Economist) and Plaidoyer (impossible) pour les socialistes (Plea (Impossible) for Socialists).