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‘Democracy risks failing to solve the climate problem, because of obstacles such as the power of lobbies and the weight of the fossil fuel sector’.His next novel will complete his series on capitalism: ‘A system that allows people to work for minimum wage and without consideration, but also allows individuals to accumulate billions. How did we get here?

Geneva lawyer Jean-Cédric Michel has just published his second novel. It's a thriller that follows a group of activists who are prepared to do anything to combat global warming. A thriller!

Jean-Cédric Michel, lawyer and author, guest of Pauline Vrolixs and Simon Mathey-Doret on 23 March 2022 in ‘Drôle d'époque’.

Following ‘Le jour où Apple a acheté la Grèce’ (The day Apple bought Greece), Geneva lawyer and author Jean-Cédric Michel has written a new book, ‘Ministère mondial du climat’ (World Climate Ministry), a fast-paced thriller set against a backdrop of global warming, slow-moving governments and activists bordering on eco-terrorism.

This scene pretty much sums up the spirit and very direct style of Jean-Cédric Michel, who set about writing World Climate Ministry during the heatwave of summer 2019. Although transposed to California, Paris or Berlin, the plot can be read as pure entertainment, but also as a warning.

In any case, the book closes with a question as burning as global warming:
should we break the law when it comes to defending a cause
the survival of the planet?

‘A few months later, the Genevan lawyer was hooked, and the initial scene became a lively, clever, well-documented and thought-provoking novel.

‘When we heard about the book Le jour où Apple a acheté la Grèce (The day Apple bought Greece), we were rather suspicious. Instead of trying to write the truth about Apple, Jean-Cédric Michel came up with the idea of writing fiction. Since we don't know much, we might as well imagine. And in the end it's a great success.

‘With his first novel, Geneva lawyer Jean-Cédric Michel uses fiction to develop a scenario that is far too close to reality not to be frightening. As with the famous SAS series (minus the hot scenes), and always in tune with current international events, this political and financial thriller seems more real than true.’

‘Apple decides to buy Greece to manage it better. That's the pitch for this excellent novel by Jean-Cédric Michel. Apple's idea is also to revolutionise taxation, thanks to a software programme of its own, i-Tax, ‘by moving from a taxation of labour to a taxation of flows’. Another utopia we'd love to see come to fruition. This novel is a humanist quest. A brilliant novel.

‘Is this an essay or a novel? A thriller, no doubt about it, but one that screams with truth. It's enough to make you shudder for democracy...’

‘The author avoids the trap of technical complexity to create a plot in the best possible vein, as educational as it should be. This is not the least merit of this novel, which reconciles a cold realism about the excesses of global finance with a pleasant utopia that he makes perfectly credible, even if he is probably not fooled by it. As a bonus, there are some colourful characters, such as the secret agents who are overwhelmed by the situation. To be read on holiday, even on the beach, imagining that the sand is a carpet of gold’.