Édouard Tétreau is a French public intellectual known as an essayist, columnist, and political and economic consultant. He is the founder and managing partner of Mediafin.
Tétreau has frequently called for the creation of the "United States of Europe" in his articles in Le Monde and Le Figaro and Les Échos, and in his public interventions with the French Parliament, in China, and in New York City. In his book Analyste, published in 2005, Tétreau discusses the excesses and short-termism of the financial system during the internet bubble. Tétreau then published his second book 20 000 milliards de dollars upon his return to France in the fall of 2010, after having spent three years in New York City. The book discusses the national debt of the United States following the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis and the country's transition from the Bush to the Obama administration. It was later translated to Chinese and published by China Citic Press. Tétreau is also the author of Quand le dollar nous tue, published by Grasset in 2011. His book, Au-delà du mur de l’argent, was published on 9 September 2015 by French publisher Stock. It follows an Autumn 2014 briefing paper for the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Culture, calling for an intervention of Pope Francis in New York in September 2015, during the Pope's scheduled visit to the U.S. The book warns of the risks of a major and imminent "accident" in the global economy. It offers concrete answers for an alternative economic model based upon "Pope Francis economics" and various teachings from other religions, which, like many secular philosophies, give priority to the poorest and most fragile elements of our societies. On 16 February 2016, in a much discussed opinion piece in Le Figaro, Tétreau described a Brexit as a "tremendous opportunity" for France, writing that an EU without Britain would be dominated by a Franco-German bloc that would be able to proceed with closer integration of the EU in a way that would not be possible if the UK were to remain. Tétreau argued that it was Britain that was most responsible for enlarging the European Union to include the nations of Eastern Europe as a way of weakening the Franco-German bloc which had dominated the European Economic Community since its founding with the 1957 Treaty of Rome. Tétreau maintained that none of the Eastern European nations should have been admitted to the EU, and that an EU without Britain would not take in new members that did not belong. Furthermore, Tétreau argued that it was the expansion of the EU into Eastern Europe that caused the war in the Ukraine as it awakened "Russia's paranoia" and argued that British participation in the Iraq war had gratuitously damaged Europe's relations with the Muslim world. Tétreau maintained that an EU without the United Kingdom would have better relations with both Russia and the Muslim world. Finally, Tétreau argued that if a Brexit were to occur, it would allow the French to make Paris the financial and economic capital of Europe in place of London as a number of multinational firms, especially American firms would relocate to Paris in order to maintain access to the European common market.
Recognition
On 16 March 2000, as a financial analyst for Crédit Lyonnais, Tétreau published an analysis of an imminent internet crash titled "Take your e-profits before a potential e-crash." In Mercury Rising, he predicted the danger of bankruptcy for Vivendi Universal, leading to the departure of Vivendi head Jean-Marie Messier. In 2005, Tétreau received the Sénat Reader Prize for an Economics Book for his book Analyste: au cœur de la folie financière. On 10 May 2006, Tétreau spoke before the French Senate’s Commission on Finances, underlining the need for the French economy and society to prepare itself for an inevitable, brutal end to the period of financial excess and overabundance. In China, where Tétreau's last book was published in 2012, he became a 2013 Young Leader of the France China Foundation Programme.
Personal life
Tétreau is married with three children, and resides in Paris.
