An email I received this morning from the Research Network on Innovation in Boulogne-sur-Mer. This is a terrible tragedy that goes well beyond the loss of any of the brave individuals who were murdered.

Bonjour,

J’ai appris avec stupeur l’assassinat de notre collègue Bernard Maris dans les locaux du journal “Charlie Hebdo”. Bernard (ou oncle Bernard) a été depuis le début d’Innovations un soutien scientifique précieux de notre revue. Il a été depuis 1999 membre du comité scientifique, auteur et conseiller du bureau de la revue.

Bien à vous

Dimitri Uzunidis
Innovations

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Dear colleagues,

I have been shocked to learn that our colleague Bernard Maris was murdered in the office of the journal “Charlie Hebdo”, Paris. From the beginnings of Innovations, Bernard (uncle Bernard) has been a major scientific support for our journal. He has been a member of the Scientific Committee, author and advisor of the Editorial Board of Innovations.

Best regards,

Dimitri Uzunidis
Innovations

Réseau de Recherche sur l’Innovation
Research Network on Innovation

As it says in his just updated Wikipedia entry, “Bernard Maris (23 September 1946 – 7 January 2015) was a French economist, writer and journalist who was also a shareholder in Charlie Hebdo magazine. He was murdered in January 2015, in the Charlie Hebdo shooting at the headquarters of the magazine in Paris.”

MORE ON BERNARD MARIS: This is my edited Google translation of an AFP report.

Bernard Maris, iconoclastic economist of the left who was killed on Tuesday in the attack against the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, was a man “tolerant and benevolent”, recognized for the quality of his thought and his art extension. He was 68.

“He was a tolerant man, caring, friendly, full of humor and did not take himself too seriously,” said the clearly moved editor of Les Echos Dominique Seux who had debated with him every week on France Inter.

“Bernard Maris was a man of heart, culture and a high tolerance. He will be greatly missed,” Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France, said in a statement saluting Maris, who had sen appointed in 2011 to the General Council of the central bank.

A graduate of the Toulouse Institute of Political Studies in 1968, associate degree in economics in 1994, he recently completed his teaching career researcher at the University Paris after an earlier period at Toulouse I.

But as a recognized researcher, he was familiar to many for his many appearances on radio, television and in the press.

Shareholder of Charlie Hebdo since 1992, he wrote a weekly satirical weekly column signed “Uncle Bernard”. And what illustrated his talents as a difficult-to-chategorise populariser was his frequent description as a “journalist-economist”.

He has written numerous books with evocative titles including, in 1998, “Ah that economic Lovely War!”, and in 2010, “Marx, Marx oh, why have you forsaken me?”. But it was his “Anti-saving manual”, released in early 2000, where the first volume is devoted to the ants and the second to the grasshoppers, which was his most successful publication.

“Economics is so annoying! Must recognize that it is more pleasant to read poetry … And at the same time, it affects us all. Then my pleasure – outside the small personal and egocentric satisfaction of seeing my name in the media – is hearing it said by a viewer: ‘With you, we understand’,” he quipped in an interview with Telerama in 2008.

Originally from the southwest of France, he had kept a beautiful accent that made him recognizable in any debate. As an economist, he had long defended the thesis of economic decay, advocating the values ​​of a collaborative and participatory economy and criticizing the ravages of consumer society.

“I will again never wake up with Bernard Maris on a Friday morning …. Infinite sadness,” Tweeted a listener, amid a wave of tributes on the social network.

“At home there are Pedagogical Notebooks, Charlie Hebdo and Bernard Maris anti-saving manual …” added another, recalling the commitment deeply rooted on the left of this atypical personality.

“We can say that he was anti-liberal, left …, anarcho-Keynesian” describes Dominique Seux, insisting that he represented “the economic thinking of many French.”

Member of the scientific board of Attac, and the Green candidate in the 2002 legislative election, Bernard Maris was also a recognised university professor. In 2011, the President of the Senate Jean-Pierre Bel was surprised by Maris being asked to join the General Council of the Banque de France.

Recently, Bernard Maris had drawn fire, including from the left, for the devaluation of the euro.

Always working on several fronts, in 2014 he had published, “Houellebecq Economist” (Flammarion). He saw, indeed, in the novels of the provocative writer, a lucid analysis of economic reports, the world of work and deindustrialization.

Bernard Maris defended the memory of the writer Maurice Genevoix, great witness of the war of 14-18. He was married to Maurice’s daughter, Sylvie, with whom he had two children.