I Chose Liberty - Ludwig von Mises Institute

120 I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians
liberal ideas gained momentum, notably with congressman Alain Madelin. Free-market
economists organized a Mediterranean cruise in November 1985 where academics, politicians,
officials, businessmen discussed the new course of action for the incoming government.
I had written an essay, “Libéralisme et Environnement,” which was to be published in
1986 in Futuribles, a journal founded by Bertrand de Jouvenel in the fifties. The idea that
property rights and market instruments were often better tools than government was like
a dirty word. In order to make sure that new concepts were no more than pure non-conformist
thinking, Hugues de Jouvenel asked three other socialist-oriented specialists to comment
and critique my essay. This article was the first paper dealing with FME published in French
in a major journal.
I must also mention the role of the “Université d’été des Nouveaux Economistes”
organized by Jacques Garello every summer in Aix-en-Provence since 1977. Each week-long
session featured classical liberal economists. There I met top environmental specialists such
as Rick Stroup, Terry Anderson, Fred Smith, R.J. Smith, Jean Luc Migué, Jane Shaw, John
Baden, Jo Kwong, Roger Bate, Bruce Yandle, etc. The 1992 meeting dealt with “New
Resources Economics and Institutions.”
Writing articles was a necessary but small step. Guy Millère and I edited and published
“Ecologie et liberté, une autre approche de l’environnement” in 1992 in order to give in
French the basic material on FME.
In 1992 Alain Madelin, the only true classical liberal politician in France, and his
quasi–spin-doctor Henri Lepage, asked me to help them set up the “International Center
for Research on Environmental Issues” (ICREI) which was to be an FME think tank. For
some four years, our main activity was to organize a two-hour colloquium every two months
in the Assemblée Nationale premises with top environmentalists, both French and foreign.
However, in 1996 ICREI was no longer able to find adequate funding since, as usual, the
conservatives were no longer interested in pushing ideas and because the succeeding conservative
Ministers of Environment were more interested in me-tooism with socialist thinking
than introducing reforms.
Several conferences in France and abroad inspired me to write papers, which had but
limited influence. Again, Alain Madelin, creating his own party, “Democratie Libérale,”
was the best support to spread FME, ideas but this was a mixed support since he was considered
as a brilliant but uncontrollable maverick by the conservative establishment inspired
by technocratic and bureaucratic Gaullism.
In 1996, in conjunction with Jean Pierre Centi, professor of economics at Aix-en-
Provence and a member of the so-called “Nouveaux Economistes” group, we decided to set
up a three-day international conference on “Property Rights and Environment.” Michel
Massenet, a highly respected top official (Conseiller d’État) chaired the meeting. Funding
was difficult, but with the help of land owners’ organizations (both at the French and
European level) and paradoxically, some government money, we succeeded beyond expectation,
to the point that we decided to set up a conference every two years dealing with each
environmental resource, e.g., water (1998), marine resources (2000), coastal zone (2002).
I am indebted to many people. In economics, to the writings of Henri Lepage, Rick
Stroup and Terry Anderson, in addition to Adam Smith and Frédéric Bastiat. In legal