Fabrice Balanche (born November 3, 1969, in

Belfort Belfort (; archaic , ) is a city in northeastern France, situated approximately from the Swiss border. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Territoire de Belfort. Belfort is from Paris and from Basel. The residents of the city ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

) is a French

geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...

and specialist in the

political geography Political geography is concerned with the study of both the spatially uneven outcomes of political processes and the ways in which political processes are themselves affected by spatial structures. Conventionally, for the purposes of analysis, ...

and geopolitics of

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

, Iraq and the wider

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

. He was described by the

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) is a nonpartisan international affairs think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C., with operations in Europe, South Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East, as well as the United States. Foun ...

as "one of the leading French experts on Syria". He is regularly quoted in the written press on the subject of Syria, in relation to his methods of mapping the Syrian civil war. In April 2025, he was assaulted by masked pro-Palestinian activists during a class at Lyon 2 University. The Lyon public prosecutor's office opened an investigation for "obstructing the exercise of the teaching function." He was placed under "functional protection."

Publications

Books

Lessons of the Syrian crisis
(in French), Odile Jacob, Paris, 2024.
Syria and Lebanon: sectarianism and power
(in French), Presses Universitaires de Rhin et Danube, Hunningues, 2022.
Sectarianism in Syria's Civil War
Archived 2018-09-22 at the

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, Washington Institute, 2018.
Atlas of the Near East: State Formation and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
1918–2010, Brill, Amsterdam, 2017 * Geopolitics of the Middle East (in French), La Documentation française, Documentation photographique, Paris, 2014 * The Alaouite region and the Syrian power (In French), Karthala, Paris, 2006, 313 p. () * ''Atlas of the Arabic Near East'', Paris-Sorbonne University Press RFI, 2012, 135 p. ()

Collective works

*

' (in French)'','' ''Maghreb-Machrek'', Paris, n° 217, printemps 2014 *
Beirut between globalization and Syrian crisis
' (in French), ''Géosphère'', USJ-Beyrouth, Volume 3

References

External links

Fabrice Balanche
Lyon University.
Fabrice Balanche
Personal website {{DEFAULTSORT:Balanche, Fabrice 1969 births Living people French geographers French political scientists People from Belfort The Washington Institute for Near East Policy University of Tours alumni 20th-century French people 21st-century French scientists