Graduated Doctor in Tours University (2000), I am an assistant professor of geography (since 2007) in Lyon University and Adjunct Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy since 2018. I have been a fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University (2017-2018), after having been a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (2015-2017).
My first stay in the Middle East began in 1990. Since then, I have lived for ten years between Syria and Lebanon, privileged areas of my research. Fellow (1990-1991), research grantee (1996-1998) at the French Institute of the Near East (IFPO), then director of the Urban Observatory of the Near East at the IFPO (2003 – 2007). Director of the Research and Studies Group on the Mediterranean and the Middle East (GREMMO, UMR 5291) at the Maison de l’Orient (2010 and 2015). Since 2017, I belong to the Environment, City and Society laboratory (EVS, UMR 5600) of the University of Lyon.
My research is part of a global geography with the Middle East as a framework. My goal is to understand the relationships between the construction of territories and the power of the local scale at the scale of this region. In this context, I participated in various scientific research programs, such as the urban ANR on urban development in the Middle East (2007-2011) and the World Bank program “Building for Peace in the Middle East and North Africa”. In 2021, I launched a research program on “The Reconstruction of the Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq)” supported by the research centre “Urban World Intelligence” (Intelligence des Mondes Urbains).
In addition to my academic work, I carry out expertise in economics, geopolitics and development in the region for public institutions, development agencies and economic intelligence companies. From 2005 to 2011, I notably worked as a consultant for the German Cooperation (GIZ) and the French Agency for Development (AFD) in Syria on a program to preserve water resources. The war put an end to development programs in the Middle East, but it opened up humanitarian and security programs. Since my return from the United States in 2018, I directed a Syrian observatory (2018-2021) then a Levant observatory (2023) within AESMA on behalf of the General Directorate of International Relations and Strategy (DGRIS).
Finally, I must highlight my work in various NGOs since the start of the Syrian crisis. My humanitarian commitment led me to “Médecins Sans Frontière” (2018), “Solidarités” (2019-2020) and more recently Mines Advisory Group (MAG) for which I carried out a study on security in North-East Syria (2022 ).
The sectarianism and the Syrian civil war, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Washington, 2018
Atlas of the Near East: State Formation and the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1918-2010, Brill, Amsterdam, 2017
Livres
- Syrie Liban : communautarisme et pouvoir, Presses Universitaires de Rhin et Danube, Huningue, 2022
- The sectarianism and the Syrian civil war, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Washington, 2018
- Atlas of the Near East: State Formation and the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1918-2010, Brill, Amsterdam, 2017
- Géopolitique du Moyen-Orient, La Documentation Française, Paris 2014
- Atlas du Proche-Orient arabe, Paris, Presses Universitaires de Paris Sorbonne, 2011
- La région alaouite et le pouvoir syrien, Paris, Karthala, 2006
Coordination de revue
- Le Liban et la crise syrienne, Maghreb-Machrek, Paris, n° 217, printemps 2014
- Beyrouth entre mondialisation et crise syrienne, Géosphère, USJ-Beyrouth, Volume 33-44, 2012-2013
Principaux articles scientifiques
- « Syrie : un conflit gelé en trompe l’oeil», Politique étrangère, IFRI, 2/2022
- « L’Etat syrien avant 2011 : une légitimité en perdition », Conflits, n°38, mars 2022.
- « The Revenge of Geography in Afghanistan », Telos, Wednesday, December 8, 2021.
- « Le régime d’Assad a échoué à restaurer sa pleine souveraineté sur la Syrie », Revue Défense Nationale, vol. h-no. HS3, 2021, pp. 39-43.
- « Le Nord-Est syrien : les enjeux du grenier à blé », Moyen-Orient, n°41, janvier-mars 2019
- « The Iranian Land Bridge in the Levant: The Return of Territory in Geopolitics », Telos, New York, September 14, 2018.
- « From the Iranian Corridor to the Shia Crescent », Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Août 2018
- « The United States In Northeastern Syria », Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, Juillet 2018
- « Syria-Iraq: Limiting Iranian Influence Implies Returning to Realpolitik », Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, November 2017.
- « The End of the CIA Program in Syria », Foreign Affairs, August 2, 2017
- « Syrie : de la révolution laïque et démocratique à Daech », Hérodote, n°160-161, La Découverte, Hiver 2016.
- « Go to Damascus, my son », in The ‘Alawis of Syria: War, Faith and Politics in the Levant, Michael Kerr and Craig Larkin, C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, London, 2015.
- « Métropolisation et mondialisation : des facteurs de déstabilisation politique dans le monde arabe » (en espagnol), Foro internacional, Mexico, Mai 2012
- « The reconstruction of Lebanon or the racketeering ruling », in Are Knudsen and Michael Kerr (editors), Lebanon After the Cedar Revolution, C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, London, 2012, 256 p.
- « L’Etat au Proche-Orient arabe entre communautarisme, clientélisme, mondialisation et projet de Grand Moyen Orient », L’Espace Politique, 11 | 2010/2, mis en ligne le 18 novembre 2010
- « Clientélisme, communautarisme et fragmentation territoriale en Syrie », A Contrario, mars 2009
- « La pénurie d’eau en Syrie : compromis géopolitiques et tensions internes », Maghreb-Machrek, septembre 2008
- « Les municipalités dans la Syrie Baathiste », Revue Tiers Monde, n°193, janvier-mars 2008
- « Transports et espace syrien », Annales de Géographie, Année 2003 630 pp. 146-166