Biography

I am a political and social scientist working on contemporary International Relations, the Islamic World, Political Islam and Salafist currents. I completed my PhD in Sciences Po Paris in November 2011.
My dissertation, ‘Beyond Discourse, Salafism in France, Socialization or Rupture of a Social Phenomenon?’, an analysis of the emergence of a new face of Islam in France, aimed at examining the factors why this Islamic current has globalized and met success within French society. It has been published in 2013 under the title From the Gulf to the French Banlieues. Globalized Salafism.
This work is based on more than five years of fieldwork in Europe and Arab countries, such as Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, during which I gathered a significant amount of religious materials, interviewed several clerics and many of their adepts, and spent considerable time on ethnographic observation among grassroots Salafi groups.
I will use the Max Weber Fellowship to study current events and political transitions in the Arab World, with a specific focus on Islamist Movements engaged in exercising power today. At the same time I intend to study conflicts such as the Israel-Palestinian struggle. I will also use this opportunity to work on the radicalization process among some Muslim groups in the West.