Jacques Attali book did not include plan for depopulation by a pandemic
Jacques Attali book did not include plan for depopulation by a pandemic
(Reuters) - French writer Jacques Attali never wrote about a plan to reduce the population by creating or finding a pandemic virus in his book, “Verbatim: 1981 - 1986.” However, social media users are sharing a video showing a purported excerpt from the book to suggest that Attali predicted the Covid-19 pandemic.
An Instagram user sharing the video claim said, “Sorry for the cursing but this can’t be made up. I told some people this before it even happened!! Please listen and please research, I just ordered the book” (here). More examples of the circulating video can be seen (here) and (here).
The purported book excerpt shown in the video reads: “The future will be about finding a way to reduce the population…Of course, we will not be able to execute people or build camps. We get rid of them by making them believe it is for their own good…We will find or cause something, a pandemic targeting certain people, a real economic crisis or not, a virus affecting the old or the elderly, it doesn’t matter, the weak and fearful will succumb to it. The stupid will believe in it and ask to be treated. We will have taken care of having panned the treatment, a treatment that will be the solution. The selection of idiots will therefore be done by itself: they will go to the slaughterhouse alone.”
The original video was posted on TikTok on Sept. 21 and has since garnered more than 324,000 views (here).
Attali was a special advisor to French President Francois Mitterrand from 1981 to 1991 (here), (www.attali.com/en/biography/). He released a three-volume chronicle of those years titled “Verbatim,” with details and records of one-on-one meetings between heads of state. The first volume covers 1981 to 1986 (here).
The first volume of Verbatim can be read in full in the original French (here).
Reuters has reviewed the contents of this edition of the book by searching for French translations of the key phrases and words in the viral video post, including “pandemic,” “reduce the population,” “elderly,” “virus,” “treatment,” and “slaughterhouse.”
Nowhere in the book does Attali refer to a pandemic in French, nor do French terms for “reduce the population” or “slaughterhouse” appear in the text.
Attali mentioned the word “virus” once, on Jan. 18, 1985 (page 1301), when he recorded that a team from the Pasteur Institute identified the AIDS virus, an apparent reference to confirmation of the discovery of the HIV retrovirus by Luc Montagnier and his team in 1983 (here), (here).
Attali referred to people over age 65 on May 11, 1982 (page 385). This is the only instance of Attali mentioning the elderly throughout the book, and it was when talking about potentially abolishing housing tax for people over 65. No reference is made to introducing a virus affecting the elderly.
Attali mentions the word “treatment” multiple times in the book, mostly in the sense of behavior toward someone, and only once in the medical sense. On Nov. 19, 1981 (page 225), he detailed that news of Mitterrand being treated for cancer at a hospital made the front page of a news outlet. It was later revealed that the prostate cancer, which ultimately killed Mitterrand, was diagnosed just months after he was elected president in 1981 but was only made public in 1992, according to Reuters reporting (here).
Online users have shared mistranslated excerpts attributed to Attali since at least 2021, attributing them to multiple books by the author (here) and (here). These false claims include the idea that Attali mentioned that a pandemic is necessary to establish a New World Order and advocated for euthanasia of the elderly.
In an April 2021 interview, Attali told the AFP that the text in the viral posts was completely fabricated (here).
VERDICT
False. While the book “Verbatim” is indeed written by Jacques Attali, the English excerpt shared in the viral posts online does not occur in French anywhere in the book.
