Portrait of graduates : Charles Thépaut

As part of the “Europe, Peace and Security” conferences of the Master cycle in European and International Careers, Sciences Po Lille had the honor of welcoming Charles Thépaut on the theme “the Arab world between social crises and new geopolitics”.

His journey

Charles Thépaut graduated from the Arthur Rimbaud class (2011). A diplomat at Quai d'Orsay, he is currently seconded to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

A specialist in the Middle East and North Africa, he has worked in Syria, Algeria, Iraq and the International Coalition against Daesh. He taught at Sciences Po Lille, at Paris Dauphine University and works with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Justice.

His book

The Arab countries are crossed by crises difficult to disentangle. The "springs" of 2011 challenged systems that were no longer viable but were unable to address their economic and social causes. The suppression of the uprisings has generated new conflicts, but the populations continue to demand more dignified treatment, as in Algeria, Lebanon and Iraq in 2019.
Mixed with geopolitics, these crises fuel different degrees of violence: the extreme brutality of Daesh and the wars in Yemen and Syria, occasional escalations in Gaza and repeated conflicts in Libya ... In more stable areas, inequalities worsen between a elite integrated into globalization and the rest of the population.

This book offers a precise analysis of each country in this fragmented region. He also explains its new geopolitics, at a time when Russia, Iran and Turkey are profiting from American exhaustion vis-à-vis the Middle East.
If the picture is bleak, this book also recalls the energy of societies that continue to live, bubbling with local initiatives, to shape their future despite the obstacles.

Available in bookstores from March 4, 2020.

To find out more, visit the website of its publisher Armand Colin.

Find his profile in the Sciences Po Lille Alumni directory, on Twitter and on LinkedIn.