François Burgat

François Burgat, a political scientist and arabist, is Senior Research Fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research; since May 2008 he has been the head of the French Institute of the Near East.

He has lectured for, and given expert advice, to a wide range of academic institutions such as the World Economic Forum, NATO, and major private or public think tanks across the world. He has been a permanent resident in the Middle East for over 18 years: at the University of Constantine, Algeria (1973-1980), at the CEDEJ in Cairo (1989-1993), then as the director of the French Centre for Archaeology and Social Sciences in Sana'a, Yemen (1997-2003), and at the IREMAM (Institut de Recherches et d’Etudes sur le Monde Arabe et Musulman) in Aix-en-Provence (2003-2008).

Publications in English

• The Islamic Movement in North Africa (U of Texas Press, 1997),
• Face to Face with Political Islam (IB Tauris, 2002),
• Islamism in the shadow of al-Qaeda, Paris, La Découverte 2005, (U. of Texas Press 2008).