JONATHAN GRAY: PARIS HAS ITS NEW RICHELIEU

On 6 August 2022 / Dossier The New Cold War, Dossier The Truly Powerful, IBI World France, Lobbying / Leave a comment

A lobbyist is one who, for a fee, gets governments to make decisions that, without a powerful incentive, they would never make. This way of influencing politics has always existed, but its transformation into a profession is much more recent.

Compared to the rest of the Western world, France has its own variant: the lobbyists, in Paris, are not external, but internal to politics – they are advisors to the government, like in absolute monarchies. When the courageous young Gascon Charles D’Artagnan presents himself to Monsieur de Tréville to be admitted among King Louis XIII’s musketeers, even before he crosses swords with those who will become his lifelong friends (Athos, Porthos and Aramis), he clashes with the squadrons of Cardinal Richelieu, the very powerful lobbyist who intrigues behind the sovereign’s back and, in this way, controls French politics and diplomacy.

Today, the musketeers are just a literary image from a distant past. But the lobbyists capable of directing the history of France are still there, and they are paid directly by the successive sovereigns at the Elysée. For almost half a century, this position has been occupied by a businessman little known to the general public, but capable of replacing politicians and diplomats in the conduct of France’s international economic and military negotiations.

His name is Jacques Attali, and he has been up to so much mischief that he was forced, after advising five presidents of the Republic, to flee to the Ivory Coast, where he is living a far from peaceful old age.

But his power has not disappeared like a soap bubble. It has only been transferred to his successor: Jonathan Gray, an English boy, with residence on the Côte d’Azur, about whom hardly anyone knows anything – except the rulers of Arab countries and the leaders of African countries, who are the interlocutors of his intrigues and negotiations. The difference is that, after Attali’s experience gone wrong, Gray does not get hired by the Elysée Palace, but lives as much as possible in the shadows, floating between trusts and offshore financial companies.

Jacques Attali: birth of an almost secret power

Jacques Attali, as EBRD President, meets Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow[1]

Attali was born in 1943 in an Algeria that was still a French colony. When the uprising broke out, his family moved to Paris. He studied economics at the best French schools and became an economic policy advisor at a very young age. His collaboration with François Mitterrand, for example, began in 1973, just before the presidential elections. Attali’s main task was to prepare Mitterrand to answer questions about the economy, his weak point. Elected president in 1981, Mitterrand appointed him ‘special advisor’ for the preparation of international summits[2].

He remained at the Elysée Palace until 1991, when he was appointed president of the EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) – the financial institution Attali wanted to guide the countries of Central Europe and the former Soviet Union in their transition to a free market economic system[3]. In 1991, for example, Attali succeeded in forcing the G7 heads of state to meet Mikhail Gorbachev in person at EBRD headquarters to discuss an aid plan[4]. He remained in office until June 1993, when an internal investigation into his management of the bank’s accounts began: Attali allegedly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on jets – taking clients to expensive nightclubs and organising lavish parties[5].

At the EBRD, in just two years, he spent one billion francs in the countries of the Soviet diaspora[6], and forged relationships that served him well when he founded Attali & Associés (A&A), which advises large economic groups on financial strategy[7]. Over the years, French presidents have rewarded him with millions of euros in orders[8]. In 1998, he founded the non-profit association PlaNet Finance (present in 60 countries) which supports over 10,000 microfinance companies, as well as several NGOs: Action contre la faim, Eureka (European Agency for Coordination of Research and Development) and Positive Planet[9]. He is the author of dozens of books and is extremely active as a columnist but is also a sought-after conductor[10].

It was Attali who advised François Hollande to run for president, and it was again he who recruited 29-year-old Emmanuel Macron for a government post and a position at Rothschild Bank in 2007. Nicolas Sarkozy asked him to head a commission on economic growth and Hollande pledged to implement the reforms it had developed (competitive market reform, territorial reform and health reform)[11]. In short, he is France’s most influential political lobbyist, as evidenced by his words the day after Macron’s first election victory: ‘I am very proud to have said four years ago: the next president of France will be a stranger’[12].

After years spent at Mitterrand’s side, Attali’s golden age was that of the Sarkozy presidency[13] as advisor to a political commission, whose final report, published on 23 January 2008, formed the basis of the Elysée Palace’s domestic and foreign policy line[14]. Attali’s time as an advocate of strict neo-liberalism[15] ended in a torrent of criminal investigations, from which the lobbyist emerged judicially unscathed, but with his reputation ruined[16]. The most serious scandal he was involved in was the so-called Angolagate, an illegal arms trade in Luanda, a source of multi-million-dollar bribes, covered up by President Mitterrand and his ally Charles Pasqua[17]. In court, Attali claims to have fought to eradicate poverty in the African country[18].

In 2008, the judiciary accused Attali of having paid $160,000 to his own company – a bribe from arms dealers, and of having used his influence with the then foreign minister, Hubert Védrine, to obtain the cancellation of a fine of around EUR 300 million imposed on ZTS-Osos, a Slovak company used by arms dealers Pierre Falcone and Arcady Gaydamak[19]. President Mitterrand’s son Jean-Christophe, co-defendant in the case, received a suspended sentence, while Attali was acquitted[20], despite the Paris prosecutor’s office demanding a five-year prison sentence and 375,000 euro fine[21].

Attali prepares succession

Jonathan Gray[22]

Around 2009/2010[23], Jonathan Gray introduced Jacques Attali[24] to Saudi Prince Mohamed Bin Salman, the charismatic leader of the Gulf monarchies. The Prince speaks highly of him: Gray is a brilliant young man, of exceptional kindness and with a clear vision of the future[25]. In a rare interview given to Le Monde in February 2020, about the Prince, Gray says: ‘I was 27, he was 22. We got on immediately. He opened up new horizons for me, I got out of my comfortable everyday life as a European. He has many ideas, he is a visionary’[26].

Gray works alongside Attali, who works[27] as a personal advisor to Mohamed Bin Salman[28] and a lobbyist for the Riyadh government[29]. Attali works for a commission of the Royal Household[30] chaired by Minister of Culture Badr Bin Abdullah[31], which deals with developing archaeological sites[32] and promoting tourism – one of the central points of the Prince’s programme, called Vision 2030[33]. To this end, Attali convinces Paris to open a consulate in the archaeological area of Al-Ula and to finance a French language and culture institute in the same city[34]. In return, he asks to conduct as a conductor in the sumptuous Maraya Concert Hall in Ai-Ula[35]. In addition to this, Attali has long known Gerard Mestrallet, an executive of the Tractebel group[36]. Both Attali and Mestrallet provided services to the Saudi Royal Commission for Al-Ula[37]. In April 2018, Attali and Mestrallet attended an event in Paris with Mohamed Bin Salman during his visit to France. Both Mestrallet and Attali were photographed together several times, even as they arrived and left the event together[38]. But the lobbyist and the prince are now just good friends: the real work has passed into the hands of young Gray[39].

Son of Martin Gray (a Polish Holocaust survivor and author of the book ‘For Those I Loved’[40]), he lived his youth between the US and France[41], and already during his university years showed a talent for business, investing the family money in real estate brokerage (especially in Monte Carlo), hotel management[42] and even the film industry[43]. The main business of the boy, who moved to Cannes, is JG Events, which organises events (and parties) for an international and luxury clientele[44], and which he managed himself until 2017, when he took over from Attali and was forced to travel the world[45]. In real estate, through a game of mergers and acquisitions, he became the head of Leverage Global Partners for the entire south coast of France[46]. In six years, the subsidiary he founded and directed, Beauchamp Estates Cannes, quintupled its turnover[47].

But the friendships forged through Attali and through JG Events also launched him into the strategic investment consultancy sector: in May 2008, Gray founded First Idea International Ltd London (with offices in Cannes, Los Angeles and Paris[48]), which is avowedly a lobbying firm. First Idea is engaged in strategic planning for the post-oil economic transformation of the Middle East[49] through the implementation of the programmes of Vision 2030, Prince Bin Salman’s dream for the Saudi post-oil future[50]. Especially in the fields of agriculture, hydrology, tourism and the environment, Gray becomes the international champion of the Prince’s dream, and the one who provides him with technicians, political connections and banks in a generous mood[51].

The luxurious Lounge Bar opened by Jonathan Gray on the terrace of the building housing his companies in Cannes[52]

First Idea International finances individual politicians to make major Saudi and Emirati deals in France possible – the most important of which was, in 2016, the purchase of the debts of the French pension system[53]. Of course, in this way the pensions of the French were saved, but they are now under the control of Abu Dhabi, and no longer of Paris. Gray’s main clients are Saudi public and private funds investing in the Vision 2030 programme[54], which Gray meets at the Beauchamp Estates Cannes office, which houses the offices of First Idea, JG Events (dissolved in February 2019[55]), Exterieur du Sud (dissolved in February 2019[56]) and JG Connect[57]: 19 Rue des Etats Unis, Cannes[58]. With the money earned, he finances his dream: the iDeA Intelligent Design Agency, which works on the development of integrated urban projects prepared by environmentalists, technologists, engineers, designers and artists[59]. Sole clients: the monarchies of the Persian Gulf[60]. The project is so close to his heart that it convinced him to leave his villa in Biot (a medieval hilltop village near Antibes) and move to Los Angeles, where iDeA is based[61].

Since 2017, Gray has been an advisor to the Saudi Public Investment Fund, controlled by Prince Bin Salman, which has invested $1 billion in Virgin Galactic, Virgin’s aerospace company[62] – a contract personally negotiated by Jonathan Gray[63]. In October 2017, during the annual Future Investment Forum (commonly known as the ‘Davos of the desert’) the Prince unveiled Neom, a planned future city to be built in the Tabuk region, facing the Red Sea[64], conceived, designed and engineered by IDeA[65]. Since it is the most important and sci-fi project that has sprung from the imagination and alliance between Prince Bin Salman and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, being the man who designs it and takes a slice of the dividends places Jonathan Gray at the head of the world’s lobbyists, consultants and project developers[66].

Of course, when you get contracts of this magnitude, it means you are also operating in the military sector. Jonathan Gray is part of the small number of French lobbyists who, after Attali’s exit from the scene, are still able to sell French arms and military aircraft, especially on behalf of the Dassault group, which has a pool of brokers with large relationships in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi for this purpose: Jean-Yves Le Drian, Georges and Guillaume Francioli[67].

In 2021, Jonathan Gray founded the real estate company Château du Caire SA Cannes[68] for a deal in the village of Tourrettes-sur-Loup, in the hills behind Cannes: an abandoned castle[69], 825 metres above sea level, built in 1781, owned by a family that did not have the money to restore it[70]. Gray’s company bought it for 3.5 million euros and divided the property in two: the older part was sold to the municipality of Tourrettes-sur-Loup for 3 million euros, and now a Qatari company is supposed to finance its restoration[71].

The other part has been transformed with an investment of 1.15 million euros, and is the old sheepfold of the château with 8300 m2 of woodland: a panoramic view of the sea, 5 bedrooms with private bathroom and shower, horsebox, garage, solar panels, water supplied by a natural spring, with a private road leading into the Côte d’Azur Pre-Alps Natural Park and an apron for helicopter landings[72]. An ideal place to host confidential meetings between politicians from all over the world, which Château du Caire SA now rents and would like to sell for EUR 1.2 million[73].

Abu Dhabi buys the pensions of the French

23 February 2020: French Minister Bruno La Maire signs the sale of a share of the LAC1 pension fund to the Emirati financial-military group Mubadala[74]

Once in the arms trade, anything becomes possible: in 2016, the French pension system comes close to insolvency. Due to steadily decreasing tax revenues, the government is forced to create an investment fund with which to pay pensions and provide social assistance to the disabled, injured, unemployed and poor. The task of creating the fund is given by the government to BPIFrance. This is a financial vehicle, created in 2013, whose objective is to support the productive economy with low-cost mortgages[75].

Already in 2014, this new vehicle is in danger of failing. Waleed Al Mokarrab Al Muhairi, CEO of Alternative Investments and Infrastructure Platform Ltd. (a subsidiary of the Emirati industrial group Mubadala, which manages the country’s military sector), acquires a stake in CDC International Capital SA Paris, a subsidiary of the Caisse des Dépôts Group that is part of BPIFrance[76]. In this way, Al Muhairi obtains that Mubadala, with EUR 300 million, becomes a 50-50 partner in the financial support of all start-ups and structural investments supported by the state[77].

In 2017, Al Muhairi increases the share to half a billion euros and Macron flies to Abu Dhabi to personally sign the contract[78]. By winter 2019, the French government expects pensions to be in jeopardy. Macron cannot raise taxes without provoking the anger of the people. The ‘yellow waistcoat’ movement was born, whose aim is to fight Macron’s tax policy, which is accused of denigrating the weakest: the unemployed, pensioners, the disabled, workers with fixed-term or special contracts, without legal security[79].

When Jonathan Gray becomes part of the negotiation, everyone in Abu Dhabi is already ready to listen to him: the ‘yellow waistcoats’ movement blames OPEC countries for the rise in oil prices[80]. In December 2018, the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (and even Iran) condemn the movement as a terrorist group[81]. In this situation, Gray is among those who initiate the negotiations, desired by Macron, for the creation of a new BPIFrance investment fund, called LAC1, endowed with 10 billion euros[82]. Its aim is to reduce taxes, support oil imports and pay for pensions. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, through Gray, invites Mubadala to participate in the fund with EUR 1 billion[83].

With this measure, Mubadala becomes co-owner of the French national debt[84] and can therefore exert a strong political and diplomatic influence on Paris’ choices. From now on, Jonathan Gray’s position changes: besides being the head of the Neom project, he becomes the one who chooses the lobbyists with whom Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan deals. At his own request, Gray, instead of dealing with them personally, hires a French lobbying company, Battûta SA Paris[85], which is an acronym full of mystery: according to the French commercial register, the company does not exist, but according to the international economic intelligence services it is based in Paris and has a multi-million dollar turnover, yet acts with its name written in Arabic(بطوطة.)[86]. Apart from the lawyer Bertrand Damon, Alexandre Krivine’s former partner who moved to Dubai, nothing is known about the management of this company.

Attali, Gray and Kazakhstan: almost a love story

7 November 2019: Jacques Attali meets the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev[87]

Jacques Attali built his ties in the former Soviet Union when he was president of the EBRD, and developed a friendly relationship with the oligarch president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev[88]. Starting in 2012, Attali took on the role of private advisor to members of the government[89] – a position that continued even when Nazarbayev was replaced by Kassym-Jomart Tokayev[90]. For Astana (renamed to Nur-Sultan), Paris has become a strategic partner in which French industry has already invested over USD 11 billion[91]. This relationship bases its existence on an extensive network of corruption and intimidation, from which the regime is desperately trying to extricate itself with costly public relations campaigns[92].

But the facts are incontrovertible. Jean S. Galiev, Kazakhstan’s Ambassador to France and Monaco and Permanent Advisor to UNESCO[93], one of the pillars of the Nazarbayev regime, has been paid for years to act as an intermediary between the Kazakh President and Attali[94]. Galiev wrote in 2012: ‘[The president] himself proposed to Jacques Attali to become an advisor. The latter accepted, but is waiting for a concrete invitation. On 4 December I met him by chance in a restaurant. He confirmed to me that he had not yet received a proposal‘[95]. In the spring of 2013, Karim Massimov, twice prime minister and former head of the security services), invited Attali to Astana: ‘Nursultan Nazarbayev always studies with the same interest his ideas and suggestions on the future of the world economy, the social aspects of public life, the new challenges and values of the world, and the Kazakhstan-France partnership’[96]. This is the same Massimov who, after the regime change, was arrested (January 2022) for corruption and high treason[97].

The shower of money arriving from France is redistributed by the state holding company Baïterek, created in May 2013 by presidential decree, and its subsidiary, the Development Bank of Kazakhstan: ‘the Development Bank of Kazakhstan has entrusted the firm Attali & Associés with a mission covering specific and technical issues, in particular the production of a ten-year economic diversification strategy and the development of the Almaty financial centre. This serves Kazakhstan to move closer to the criteria for OECD membership, including financial transparency and democracy’[98]. During this period Attali lives part of the year in Kazakhstan and has worked in partnership with Karim Massimov[99]. Attali works for the sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna[100], which invests public money in the growth of Kazakh industry[101].

Over the last quarter of a century, Kazakhstan’s economy has grown at an average rate of more than 4% per year, reaching peaks (before the global crisis of 2008) of 13.5% in 2001[102]. Today, the country, despite the pandemic and the war, has a GDP comparable to that of the developing nations of the European Union[103]. That is why there are so many active lobbyists in Astana today – especially the French. One of them. Alexandre Krivine, is a friend of the Attali family (the two families of Ashkenazi Jews landed in Paris at the same time, at the turn of the two world wars, fleeing misery in Russia and persecution in North Africa[104]).

October 2010: then President Nicolas Sarkozy receives Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev[105]

Krivine was a judge in Grasse (near Cannes) until he was swept up in a scandal: together with a friend of his, Bertrand Dumon (who now runs Gray’s representative office in Dubai[106]), who also worked for Jonathan Gray, he allegedly cashed in 200,000 euros in the name of a non-existent charity[107]. The scandal grows because Judge Krivine is marrying a North African woman, Souad Belhouji, who obtained French citizenship illegally[108], and because Krivine is linked to the lady’s cousin, Jean-Charles Charki, a former Ashkenazi banker, involved in several cases of fraudulent bankruptcy, and at the time in the service (as a lobbyist) of his father-in-law, Claude Guéant, and his boss, President Sarkozy[109].

Krivine took the place of Guéant, who had been swept up in several scandals[110], and began a collaboration with Attali and Gray that resulted in several military agreements in Kazakhstan, under investigation on suspicion of corruption[111]. In 2015, Krivine changes jobs, and becomes a manager in a French electronics company[112], while Charki works as a lobbyist for the regime in Equatorial Guinea[113].

The future of Gray and Attali

October 2012: Prime Minister Jeannot Kouadio-Ahoussou receives Jacques Attali[114]

Overwhelmed by the investigations, Attali had to leave the management of relations with Arab countries and those of the former Soviet Union to Gray. At almost 80 years of age, the French lobbyist has no intention of stopping: he has moved to Abidjan, where he meets politicians, entrepreneurs, gives advice at conferences, and forges links with French politics[115]. ‘The second half of the 21st century will be African,’ he says, and his firm Attali & Associés has prepared a report on ‘health, political, economic, environmental and technological trends in African countries’ – Africa Trends 2021, to tell the story of this future and explain how to manage it[116]. In 2022, he was offered a contract to help transform the country’s economy[117], but Attali has already been investing time, money and relationships for ten years to build a niche for himself away from the European judiciary and public opinion[118]. And now he works for Prime Minister Patrick Achi who, like Prince Bin Salman in Riyadh, has developed the Côte d’Ivoire-Vision 2030 plan[119].

Together with Attali, all the major representatives of French industry and finance have landed in Côte d’Ivoire, from the group of those who sponsored Sarkozy to the very powerful Bolloré family, which builds infrastructures all over Africa[120], and the managers of the Rothschild & Company investment bank[121]. Gray, on the other hand, is at the peak of his professional success, and finds himself in the position of restructuring the network of his companies: many are closing down or being merged into First Idea International, and this, which was his first creation, is now owned by the group of Californian companies, led by The Hideaway Llc Los Angeles[122]. His real estate in France is taken care of by his wife, Chloé Chesneau, who lives with her children on the Côte d’Azur[123].

The financial side, on the other hand, is taken care of by his long-time partner, the English trustee Stuart Lionel Leaman, whose brokerage firm, Leaman Mattei Ltd. London[124], administers an offshore network of which nothing is known, except that it also includes a branch of First Idea International in Bulgaria, run by an Afghan exile, Rezha Fayaz[125], and one in London, directed by a Pakistani businessman, Muhammad Adeel Kayani[126], who in turn runs an obscure empire of companies dealing in everything (finance, military services, health services, etc.), scattered throughout Central Asia[127].

If Attali was a lobbyist always in the limelight, Gray represents a fundamental novelty: he has new ideas, with the Saudi monarchy he experiments with the possibility of entering spheres that, until a few years ago, would have been unthinkable for a desert sheikh – making films, designing cities of the future, organising diplomatic and commercial networks between Asian and African countries, but without passing through the door of the chancelleries of western countries. Cardinal Richelieu was struggling for power in France. Jonathan Gray, with Prince Bin Salman and Sheikh Al-Nahyan behind him, gives the Persian Gulf a window to fight on an equal footing with China and the United States, and this even when oil should no longer have the strategic importance it has today.

[1] https://expert.ru/expert/2018/23/mirovoj-poryadok-zhaka-attali/

[2] https://www.professionefinanza.com/jacques-attali/

[3] https://www.europelecture.com/id/vjfafco577z6/j_jacques_attali ; https://www.dizie.eu/dizionario/banca-europea-per-la-ricostruzione-e-lo-sviluppo/?print=print

[4] https://expert.ru/expert/2018/23/seryij-kardinal-frantsuzskoj-politiki/

[5] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/attali-makes-sudden-exit-after-audit-report-ebrd-president-and-board-criticised-over-spending-question-of-golden-handshake-still-uncertain-1485283.html ; https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-07-17-fi-14139-story.html#:~:text=Jacques%20Attali%2C%20president%20of%20the,audit%20report%20for%20excessive%20spending.

[6] https://expert.ru/expert/2018/23/seryij-kardinal-frantsuzskoj-politiki/

[7] https://www.attali-associes.com/

[8] https://expert.ru/expert/2018/23/seryij-kardinal-frantsuzskoj-politiki/

[9] https://www.attali-associes.com/#competences

[10] https://www.attali-associes.com/#competences

[11] https://expert.ru/expert/2018/23/seryij-kardinal-frantsuzskoj-politiki/

[12] https://expert.ru/expert/2018/23/seryij-kardinal-frantsuzskoj-politiki/

[13] http://www.avvocati-part-time.it/index.php/scopo-del-sito-e-accesso-mainmenu-36/435

[14] http://www.fondazionerespublica.org/?p=79 ; https://www.ilgiornale.it/news/mondo/jacques-attali-luomo-ombra-dietro-vittoria-emmanuel-macron-1389323.html

[15] https://www.gazeta.ru/politics/news/2017/06/01/n_10122737.shtml

[16] https://www.europelecture.com/id/vjfafco577z6/j_jacques_attali

[17] https://www.dw.com/en/how-angolagate-shook-french-political-foundations-to-the-core/a-5035505

[18] https://www.reuters.com/article/ofrtp-france-justice-angola-attali-20090-idFRPAE5040OX20090105

[19] https://www.reuters.com/article/ofrtp-france-justice-angola-attali-20090-idFRPAE5040OX20090105

[20] https://www.dw.com/en/how-angolagate-shook-french-political-foundations-to-the-core/a-5035505

[21] https://www.jeuneafrique.com/205870/politique/les-encombrants-amis-de-jacques-attali/

[22] https://africa-me.com/jonathan-gray-shaping-investment-opportunities-middle-east/

[23] https://www.challenges.fr/monde/moyen-orient/villepin-le-drian-pouyanne-attali-attias-ces-francais-qui-pesent-dans-le-golfe_518843

[24] https://www.challenges.fr/monde/moyen-orient/fillon-attali-le-davos-saoudien-de-mohammed-ben-salmane-attire-les-francais_682132

[25] https://www.google.it/books/edition/Le_Prince_myst%C3%A8re_de_l_Arabie/PFtuDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Jacques+Attali%22%2B%22jonathan+gray%22&pg=PT32&printsec=frontcover

[26] https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2020/02/10/neom-le-reve-hollywoodien-de-mohammed-ben-salman-pour-l-arabie-saoudite_6029009_3210.html

[27] https://www.gettyimages.ch/detail/nachrichtenfoto/fondation-positive-planet-president-jacques-attali-and-nachrichtenfoto/943767828?language=it

[28] https://www.challenges.fr/monde/moyen-orient/fillon-attali-le-davos-saoudien-de-mohammed-ben-salmane-attire-les-francais_682132

[29] https://books.google.it/books?id=OFQ_EAAAQBAJ&pg=PT192&lpg=PT192&dq=Jacques+Attali,+Saudi+Arabia&source=bl&ots=E0kyQ3hR0a&sig=ACfU3U3MIoaG_eQFuA2gNUF9aAy-xZnUSA&hl=it&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi60riD1YL5AhUR57sIHe1fBw84ChDoAXoECBMQAw#v=onepage&q=Jacques%20Attali%2C%20Saudi%20Arabia&f=false

[30] With Mohammed bin Salman, Paris tries to paint economic diplomacy with coat of a culture; Intelligence Online (EN); March 11, 2019

[31] https://www.intelligenceonline.com/corporate-intelligence/2022/07/06/besancenot-s-connections-lead-to-saudi-cultural-diplomacy-contract-for-esl-network,109797643-art ; https://www.intelligenceonline.com/international-dealmaking/2021/07/20/paris-caught-in-uae-saudi-arabia-power-struggles-over-arts-programmes,109680743-eve

[32] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsNt00daeOg&ab_channel=TurismoItaliaNewsTv

[33] https://forbes.it/2022/04/11/arabia-saudita-vision-2030-vuole-fare-turismo-nuovo-petrolio/

[34] With Mohammed bin Salman, Paris tries to paint economic diplomacy with coat of a culture; Intelligence Online (EN); March 11, 2019

[35] https://www.independent.co.uk/alula/alula-infrastructure-city-building-sustainability-german-b2083051.html

[36] Mestrallet was initially an executive of Compagnie de Suez since the 1980s, before being appointed president and CEO of the company in 1995 and president and CEO of Lyonnaise des Eaux (‘SLE’) in 1997, following the merger of SLE with Compagnie de Suez. In 1999, SLE fully absorbed Tractebel.

[37] With Mohammed bin Salman, Paris tries to paint economic diplomacy with coat of a culture; Intelligence Online (EN); March 11, 2019

[38] https://www.alamy.com/jacques-attali-and-gerard-mestrallet-arriving-for-lunch-when-french-prime-minister-edouard-philippe-was-receiving-saudi-arabias-crown-prince-in-hotel-matignon-paris-france-on-april-9th-2018-photo-by-henri-szwarcabacapresscom-image386562573.html ; https://www.shutterstock.com/it/editorial/image-editorial/crown-prince-mohammad-bin-salman-abdulaziz-al-9593760o

[39] https://executives.technology/jonathan-gray/

[40] https://executives.technology/jonathan-gray/

[41] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/cannes-creative-space-hideaway-jonathan-gray-matthew-rhodes-1234977578/

[42] https://jonathangray.com/biography

[43] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/cannes-creative-space-hideaway-jonathan-gray-matthew-rhodes-1234977578/

[44] https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-gray-52b7753/ ; https://jonathangray.com/biography

[45] https://executives.technology/jonathan-gray/

[46] https://executives.technology/jonathan-gray/ ; https://www.leveragere.com/ ; https://www.beauchamp.com/offices/french-riviera/meet-the-team/ ; https://www.beauchamp.com/fr/blog/meet-jonathan-gray/

[47] https://www.beauchamp.com/fr/blog/meet-jonathan-gray/

[48] https://www.intelligenceonline.com/international-dealmaking/2017/11/01/jonathan-gray-has-mohammed-bin-salman-s-ear,108278826-art