Sonia Mabrouk (; born 1977) is a Tunisian-born journalist who in 2010 obtained

French nationality French nationality law is historically based on the principles of ''jus soli'' (Latin for "right of soil") and ''jus sanguinis'', (Latin for "right of blood") according to Ernest Renan's definition, in opposition to the German definition of nat ...

. After first embarking on an academic career in

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

, in 2005 she turned to journalism, writing for the magazine ''

Jeune Afrique ''Jeune Afrique'' (English: ''Young Africa'') is a French-language pan-African weekly news magazine, founded in 1960 in Tunis and subsequently published in Paris by Jeune Afrique Media Group. It is the most widely read pan-African magazine. It o ...

''. In 2009, she was engaged by the French parliamentary television channel

Public Sénat In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

and later hosted political programmes on the radio station

Europe 1 Europe 1, (''Europe un'') formerly known as Europe nº 1, is a privately owned radio station created in 1955. It was owned and operated by Lagardère News, a subsidiary of the Lagardère Group, it was one of the leading radio broadcasting s ...

. In 2017, Mabrouk published her first book ''Le monde ne tourne pas rond, ma petite-fille''.

Early life

Born 1977 in

Tunis Tunis (, ') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region (after Casabl ...

, Sonia Mabrouk was brought up as an only child in an upper class Tunisian family with connections to President

Habib Bourguiba Habib Bourguiba (3 August 19036 April 2000) was a Tunisian politician and statesman who served as the Head of Government of Tunisia, prime minister of the Kingdom of Tunisia from 1956 to 1957, and then as the first president of Tunisia from 1 ...

. Her grandfather Mongi Mabrouk was Tunisia's trade minister and her uncle

Hédi Mabrouk Hédi Mabrouk (7 April 1921 – 15 June 2000) was a Tunisian statesman, diplomat and politician. After serving as governor of different provinces between 1956 and 1962 he headed various state-owned companies. He was the ambassador of Tunisia to F ...

was a diplomat and foreign minister. After matriculating from high school when she was 16, she studied at the

Carthage High Commercial Studies Institute The Institut des Hautes Etudes Commerciales de Carthage () or ''IHEC Carthage'' is the first business school in Tunisia, it was founded in 1942. It is ranked as 1st business school in Tunisia and 6th for French-speaking Africa as for 2011. H ...

, HEC, graduating in 2002. When she was 20, she earned a master's degree at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University with a thesis on marketing (2004).

Career

After initially spending three years in Tunis as a lecturer at the HEC, in 2005 she moved to Paris where she first worked as a journalist for ''Jeune Afrique'', conducting interviews with politicians. In 2008, she was engaged by Jean-Pierre Elkabbach to become an interviewer on the parliamentary television channel Public Sénat. Despite lack of experience, she quickly made her mark. In 2013, she hosted programmes on the radio station Europe 1, in particular the popular ''Le Débat des Grandes Voix'' featuring discussions with political figures. From September 2017, she joined

Canal+ Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

where she was one of the hosts on the news programme ''Voix de l'Info'' on

CNews CNews (; stylised as CNEWS, formerly i>Télé) is a French free-to-air opinion channel launched on 4 November 1999 by Canal+. It provides 24-hour national and global news coverage. It is the second most watched news network in France, after ...

. In addition to journalism, Mabrouk published her first book, the conversational ''Le monde ne tourne pas rond, ma petite-fille'' in 2017, followed by the novel ''Dans son cœur sommeille la vengeance'' in 2018. Both works deal with Islamic terrorism, one of her favourite subjects.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mabrouk, Sonia 1977 births Living people Writers from Tunis 21st-century French journalists Tunisian journalists Tunisian women journalists 21st-century French women writers French women journalists French former Sunni Muslims Tunisian former Sunni Muslims French women television journalists Tunisian women television presenters Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University alumni Naturalized citizens of France