Jean-Pierre Sereni

Journalist, former manager of Le Nouvel Economiste and managing editor of L’Express. Author of several books on Maghreb, Gulf countries, energy, major business leaders and the Fifth French Republic.

Algeria: Dark Days Ahead for the Oil Sector Jean-Pierre Sereni · 23 February While the political crisis continues in Algeria, the country sees its oil resources diminishing dangerously. Whence the debate in Algeria over the future of that industry and the need to call upon foreign companies, which the oil minister who has just been sacked has paid for.
Will foreign (...)
Algeria. President Tebboune’s Immobilism Will Lead Nowhere Jean-Pierre Sereni · September 2020 Nine months after his disputed election in December 2019, President Abdelmahid Tebboune has still to tackle the financial and political crises which are strangling his country a little more each day. This two-fold incapacity does not bode well for the future considering that the rapid exhaustion (...)
Origins of Military Power in Algeria Jean-Pierre Sereni · June 2020 The political preponderance of the armed forces in Algeria emerged only after a long period of confrontation following the outbreak of the war of liberation in 1954. And after the sidelining of the political figures whose influence at the start of the uprising was decisive.
Throughout the (...)
Will President Sisi Ride Out the Coronavirus and the Convulsions of the Egyptian Economy? Jean-Pierre Sereni · March 2020 While the army continues to tighten its grip on the economy, Egypt is facing new challenges, including a towering debt which is increasingly difficult to pay down and the collapse of the tourist trade due to the coronavirus. Delayed containment measures do not appear to be able to stop the (...)
Egypt. The Army’s Cheap Dodges Jean-Pierre Sereni · January 2020 The Egyptian army has its finger in every aspect of the country’s economy, not just the armaments industry. Few sectors have escaped its voracious appetite. An unprecedented study reveals the damages wrought by a system marked by low productivity, opacity and collusion schemes.
How did this (...)
The Arab Revolutions in Historical Perspective Alain Gresh, Jean-Pierre Sereni · November 2019 Once again, from Algeria to Iraq, the peoples of the Arab world are in open rebellion. What are the stumbling blocks that stand in the way of their aspirations? How does history shed light on the present situation?
We are witnessing the second wave of protest and rebellion in the Arab word. (...)
Egypt: The Economy Is Better Off Than the Egyptians Jean-Pierre Sereni · November 2019 Three years after signing an agreement with the IMF worth 12 billion dollars (9.3 billion pounds sterling), the Egyptian economy is showing respectable results in many sectors, such as growth, inflation and unemployment but the population has hardly benefited from this. The greediness of the (...)
Turkey’s Buffeted Economy Jean-Pierre Sereni · May 2019 On 23 June, voters are called to vote again to elect the mayor of Istanbul, after the opposition’s victory was invalidated. The deterioration of Turkey’s economic situation is likely to weigh heavily on the result.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s main adversary is no longer political but financial. The (...)
Biography An Algerian Named Abdelaziz Bouteflika Jean-Pierre Sereni · April 2019 After twenty years in office, Abdelaziz Bouteflika has been obliged to resign the presidency of Algeria. Let us look back on the life of a man which merges with the history of his country.
It is hard to imagine behind the inert, swollen mask of the disabled old man glimpsed in the past few (...)
Interview Would Making the Dinar Convertible in 2022 Stimulate the Algerian Economy? Jean-Pierre Sereni · September 2018 How is it possible to rouse from its torpor Algerian society which has scarcely evolved in twenty years of Abelaziz Bouteflika’s presidency? A seasoned industrialist believes he knows the answer: the end of foreign exchange controls in 2022 and the free convertibility of the national currency, (...)
Editorial Persistent Stagnation of Arab Economies Jean-Pierre Sereni · October 2017 Last week a faint breath of optimism could be detected at the annual meeting in Washington of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group: nearly all the countries of Europe and North America have in fact recovered from the crisis. Not so our Middle-Eastern neighbours. In (...)
Cheap Oil at its Third Anniversary Jean-Pierre Sereni · April 2017 Less than six months after their November 2016 agreement to raise the price of crude oil to 58 dollars a barrel, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members realised that supply still exceeded demand. In a single week, at the beginning of March 2017, this bitter truth (...)
The Illusory Reform of the Algerian Economy Jean-Pierre Sereni · January 2017 Visiting Algiers in November, Jean-François Dauphin, chief of the International Monetary Fund’s mission for Algeria, expressed the hope that in future the country’s “development would be led more by the private sector and be less dependent on petroleum.” In other words, the private sector should (...)