Jacques José Mardoché Attali (born 1 November 1943) is a French economic and social theorist, writer, political adviser and senior civil servant. Very prolific writer, between 1969 and 2023, in 54 years, Attali published 86 books.

Attali served as a counselor to President François Mitterrand from 1981 to 1991, and was the first head of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development from 1991 to 1993. In 1997, upon the request of education minister Claude Allègre, he proposed a reform of the higher education degrees system. From 2008 to 2010, he led the government committee on how to ignite the growth of the French economy, under President Nicolas Sarkozy.