Alain Lipietz (born September 19, 1947) is a French engineer, economist and politician, a member of the French Green Party.

Alain Lipietz, a green economist

Alain Lipietz is a Research Fellow at the CEPREMAP (Centre d'études prospectives d'économie mathématique appliquées à la planification).

Since the beginning of his career, he has devoted himself to the analysis of social-economic relationships within human communities.

Alain Lipietz and civic engagement for political ecology

Alain Lipietz is a former maoist. He was a candidate of Les Verts for the legislative elections of 1986 in Seine-Saint-Denis, and became the national spokeperson of the French Green Party in 1997.

He is an elected representative of the Green Party at the European Parlement since 1999.

Alain Lipietz also is an adviser to the Commission économique des Verts, a member of the Commission française du développement durable (since 2000) and a member of the Conseil d'établissement du Collège de France (since 2001).

On the 21st of June 2001, Alain Lipietz was elected candidate of the French Green Party for 2002 presidential elections. With 50% of the votes cast in the party's primaries, Lipietz narrowly beat rival candidate Noël Mamère.

However, a first controversy arised during summer 2001, when Alain Lipietz seemed to have appeared sympathetic to separatists jailed for planting bombs in Corsica. A second controversy was the issue of reopening the Mont Blanc Tunnel between France and Italy, which had been closed since 1999 after 39 people died in a fire. Meanwhile, the party dropped from seven to five percent support in opinion polls.

Finally, on the 14th of october 2001, Les Verts managed to survive a major internal crisis and changed candidate, dropping Alain Lipietz to choose Noël Mamère, who had made the irrevocable decision not to run a day sooner.

Main publications

He is the author of:

• Green Hopes. The Future of Political Ecology (1993)
  (Vert-espérance. Le futur de l'écologie politique)
• Berlin, Bagdad, Rio - XXIst Century Has begun (1992)
  (Bagdad, Rio: le XXIè siècle est commencé)

He also published books focusing on the French and Third World political economy:

• Mirages and Miracles. Fortune and Misportunes of Global Fordism (1985)
  (Mirages et miracles. Problèmes de l'industrialisation dans le Tiers-Monde)
• To Swim or to Sink. On Economic Policies of the Frend Left Governments (1984)
  (L'audace ou l'enlisement. Sur les politiques économiques de la gauche)

Other publications

• The Wealth of Regions. Towards a Socio-economical Geography. Editor with G.Benko (2000)
• What is Political Ecology ? The Great Transformation of XXIst century (1998)
• Hour-glass Society. Job Sharing vs Social Exclusion (1996)
• Phaedra : Identification of a Crime (1992)
• The Winning Regions (edited with G. Benko, 1992)
• Towards a New Economic Order. Post-Fordism, Ecology, Democracy (1989)
• The crisis (with Clerc & Satre-Buisson, 1983)
• The Enchanted World. Inflation, Credit and the Global Crises (1982)
• Crisis and Inflation : Why ? (1979)
• Capital and its Space (1977)
• The Urban Land Tribute (1974)

External links

• Personal Website
• Blog of Lipietz and friends
• Alain Lipietz on Political Ecology and the Future of Marxism
• Alain Lipietz - The post-Fordist world: labour relations, international hierarchy and global ecology
• Alain Lipietz - Working for world ecological sustainability
• Du jardin à la planète
• Ce soir, je n'ai pas envie...