Attac (Association for Transaction Taxes to Aid Citizens)

Address of Organization

66-72 rue Marceau 93 100 Montreuil-sous-bois France www.attac.org

Introduction

The Association for Transaction Taxes to Aid Citizens, better known as Attac, is a French-based international NGO that has become emblematic of the antiestablishment organizations that mushroomed with the deepening of the economic recession of the late 1990s. Attac claims to act as advocates for the rights of those “without rights” and has many links to the wider antiglobalization movement.

Brief History

In 1972, James Tobin (1918–2002), an American economist and Nobel Prize winner, proposed a worldwide standardized tax on currency speculations, the so-called Tobin tax. His idea was to make short-term currency speculation less attractive, since he considered it detrimental to the economy.

In December 1997, Ignacio Ramonet, editor of the French journal Le Monde diplomatiquewrote an article titled “Désarmer les marchés” (“Disarm the Markets”), in which he advocated the establishment...