Economist Piketty spurns France’s top honour
Thomas Piketty declines Legion d’Honneur saying he does not think it is up to a government to say who is honourable.
French economist Thomas Piketty, who shot to fame and topped best-seller lists in 2014 with his controversial book on wealth and inequality, has declined the country’s highest award, the Legion d’Honneur.
“I refuse this nomination because I don’t think it’s up to a government to say who is honourable,” Piketty said on Thursday.
“They would do better to focus on reviving growth in France and Europe.”
Together with Nobel Economics laureate Jean Tirole and Nobel Literature prize winner Patrick Modiano, Piketty was named on Wednesday on a list of new recipients of the Legion d’Honneur, awarded by President Francois Hollande.
His book Capital in the Twenty-First Century has attracted both praise and invective.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has called it a game-changer that demolishes the myth that “great wealth is earned and deserved”.
Once close to France’s ruling Socialist party, Piketty has become very critical of Hollande.
“There is a degree of improvisation in Francois Hollande’s economic policy that is appalling,” he told Le Monde daily in June.