Olivier Roy (professor)

Olivier Roy (born 1949 in La Rochelle) is a French political scientist, professor at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. He has published articles and books on secularisation and Islam including "Global Islam", and The Failure of Political Islam. He is known to have "a different view of radical Islam" than many other experts (seeing it as peripheral, Westernized and part of a radicalized and "virtual" rather than pious and "actual" Muslim community). More recently he has written on the Charlie Hebdo shooting, and the November 2015 Paris attacks.

Roy was born in 1949 in La Rochelle. Roy received an agrégation in philosophy and a master's degree in Persian language and civilization in 1972 from the French Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales. In 1996, he received his PhD in Political Science from the IEP. At the beginning he worked in 1973 as high school teacher. In the 1970 years as young was active in the maoist movement "La Gauche prolétarienne" (Proletarian Left).

He was previously a research director at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and a lecturer for both the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) and the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (IEP).

From 1984 to 2008, he consulted with the French Foreign Ministry. In 1988, Roy served as a United Nations Office for Coordinating Relief in Afghanistan (UNOCA) consultant. Beginning in August 1993, Roy served as special Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) representative to Tajikistan until February 1994, at which time he was selected as head of the OSCE mission to Tajikistan, a position he held until October 1994.

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