Caroline Roussy

Caroline Roussy is a Senior Research Fellow at IRIS and Head of the Africa/s Programme. In this capacity, she led the Sahel Observatory, coordinated by IRIS on behalf of the French Ministry of the Armed Forces, and has written policy briefs for the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Expertise France, as well as conducted research for the OIF, UNDP, and others. She has overseen two special issues of La Revue internationale et stratégique (RIS), the most recent of which focused on anti-French sentiment and was published in spring 2024.

Her work centres on France’s policy in Africa and security issues in the Sahel and West Africa, which she explores through the prism of borders — unstable zones that may be targeted by terrorist groups seeking to establish safe havens.

Prior to joining IRIS, she worked as a Programme Assistant at the International Organisation of La Francophonie within the Peace, Human Rights and Democracy Directorate, as a research engineer at the CNRS, and as an international consultant, notably for USAID, media production agencies, and public figures.

She is the author of various articles and policy notes, and co-founder of the Africa Acts contemporary art festival. She has also co-authored several publications, including a policy brief on the future of La Francophonie (2018), and two chapters in the book L’urgence africaine. Changeons le modèle de croissance (Odile Jacob, September 2019). More recently, following a conference at the G5 Sahel Defence College, she published the article Towards the Management of Sahelian Borders in the collective volume Challenges and Issues Surrounding Sahelian Borders (Rhin et Danube, November 2024).

She holds a PhD in Contemporary African History (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), for which she wrote a thesis entitled The Construction of the Senegal–Gambia Border: Territories, Territorialities, Identities (1850–1989).