Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister George Yeo, reminisced about his first meeting with Dr Jacques Attali in 1992. He learnt that he was not just a polymath but an individual with “a deep love for humanity.”
He also observed that Dr Attali was, and still is, a brilliant writer. He had been to Dr Attali’s personal study in his home and seen how he wrote several books at the same time – with different writing tables for each book. Reaffirmed Minister Yeo: “It is not just his (Attali’s) mind but also his heart. Along with knowledge and deep interest, this makes his writing so meaningful. He is an economist, a public intellectual and author of 54 books. He is a ‘dear friend’. My visit to Paris then would have been incomplete without meeting Jacques Attali.”
Minister Yeo made these remarks as he introduced Dr Attali at the ASEF Public Talk “Is the Global Economy Still in Crisis?” at the Raffles Hotel on 13 January 2011 in Singapore.