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The Other Children of the French Republic
For several years now, orphaned children have been arriving from Algeria and Morocco for legal collection by families residing on French territory. While most Muslim countries prohibit full adoption, they do allow forms of delegation of parental authority ( kafala ) that enable abandoned children living in orphanages to be cared for by families. Due to the prohibitive status of adoption in Morocco and Algeria and the fact that France is required to adhere to the regulations of those countries, these children arrive in France without having either the possibility of being naturalized or adopted. This article interrogates the particular reception reserved for these children by French institutions by analyzing the reasons for the kafala system’s relative obscurity within the French field of adoption, the measures deployed by departmental councils to assess candidates for kafala , and, finally, the alternative strategies such families use to adapt to French rule.
Journal Article
Long-Term Hydrocarbon Trade Options for the Maghreb Region and Europe—Renewable Energy Based Synthetic Fuels for a Net Zero Emissions World
Concerns about climate change and increasing emission costs are drivers for new sources of fuels for Europe. Sustainable hydrocarbons can be produced synthetically by power-to-gas (PtG) and power-to-liquids (PtL) facilities, for sectors with low direct electrification such as aviation, heavy transportation and chemical industry. Hybrid PV–Wind power plants can harvest high solar and wind potentials of the Maghreb region to power these systems. This paper calculates the cost of these fuels for Europe, and presents a respective business case for the Maghreb region. Calculations are hourly resolved to find the least cost combination of technologies in a 0.45° × 0.45° spatial resolution. Results show that, for 7% weighted average cost of capital (WACC), renewable energy based synthetic natural gas (RE-SNG) and RE-diesel can be produced in 2030 for a minimum cost of 76 €/MWhHHV (0.78 €/m3SNG) and 88 €/MWhHHV (0.85 €/L), respectively. While in 2040, these production costs can drop to 66 €/MWhHHV (0.68 €/m3SNG) and 83 €/MWhHHV (0.80 €/L), respectively. Considering access to a WACC of 5% in a de-risking project, oxygen sales and CO2 emissions costs, RE-diesel can reach fuel-parity at crude oil prices of 101 and 83 USD/bbl in 2030 and 2040, respectively. Thus, RE-synthetic fuels could be produced to answer fuel demand and remove environmental concerns in Europe at an affordable cost.
Journal Article
Strategic culture and violent non-state actors : a comparative study of Salafi-jihadist groups
\"This book applies strategic culture concepts to violent non-state actors (VNSAs) in a comparative analysis. In recent years, Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has become notorious for kidnapping Western hostages in north-western Africa and for its role in the short-lived Islamist takeover of Mali. The group, formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, rebranded itself as an Al-Qaida franchise in 2007, leading to speculation of a change from its Algeria-centric agenda to an anti-Western one. This study compares and contrasts the ideas and behaviour of these two groups, using a strategic-cultural approach, and finds that, despite some commonalities, AQIM has a distinct strategic culture from Al-Qaida central, thereby debunking the notion of Al-Qaida as a monolithic movement. This is the first comparative analysis of violent non-state actors to employ a strategic-cultural approach and the first such study on AQIM. While strategic culture has traditionally been applied to states, this work adds to the emerging literature applying such approaches to non-state armed groups, and employs a novel conception of strategic culture consisting of narratives and practices. This book will be of much interest to students of strategic culture, political violence, Middle Eastern politics, and Security Studies in general\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200–450 CE
For too long, the study of religious life in Late Antiquity has relied on the premise that Jews, pagans, and Christians were largely discrete groups divided by clear markers of belief, ritual, and social practice. More recently, however, a growing body of scholarship is revealing the degree to which identities in the late Roman world were fluid, blurred by ethnic, social, and gender differences. Christianness, for example, was only one of a plurality of identities available to Christians in this period.
InChristians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200-450 CE, Éric Rebillard explores how Christians in North Africa between the age of Tertullian and the age of Augustine were selective in identifying as Christian, giving salience to their religious identity only intermittently. By shifting the focus from groups to individuals, Rebillard more broadly questions the existence of bounded, stable, and homogeneous groups based on Christianness. In emphasizing that the intermittency of Christianness is structurally consistent in the everyday life of Christians from the end of the second to the middle of the fifth century, this book opens a whole range of new questions for the understanding of a crucial period in the history of Christianity.
eBook
The representation of the Amazigh in the Spanish press: between the exotic and the Arab-Islamic
This study examines the thematic and terminological agenda of the Amazigh, or Berber, heritage with the aim of deciphering the rhetoric in the Spanish press and the recognition given to this culture. Specifically, 454 articles from eight newspapers collected between January 2018 and June 2019 were quantitatively and qualitatively analysed. The results show the preponderance of the term ‘Berber’ over ‘Amazigh’ or ‘Imazighen’, as well as the relevance of historical or international political topics when these terms are mentioned. Broadly speaking, it is concluded that perspectives on the Amazigh gravitate between invisibility, superficiality, exoticism, and conceptual dependence on the Arab-Islamic.
Journal Article
Observed rainfall trends and precipitation uncertainty in the vicinity of the Mediterranean, Middle East and North Africa
The present study investigates the century-long and more recent rainfall trends over the greater region of Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Five up-to-date gridded observational datasets are employed. Besides mean annual values, trends of six indices of drought and extreme precipitation are also considered in the analysis. Most important findings include the significant negative trends over the Maghreb, Levant, Arabian Peninsula, and Sahel regions that are evident since the beginning of the twentieth century and are more or less extended to today. On the other hand, for some Mediterranean regions such as the Balkans and the Anatolian Plateau, precipitation records during the most recent decades indicate a significant increasing trend and a recovering from the dry conditions that occurred during the mid-1970s and mid-1980s. The fact that over parts of the study region the selected datasets were found to have substantial differences in terms of mean climate, trends, and interannual variability, motivated the more thorough investigation of the precipitation observational uncertainty. Several aspects, such as annual and monthly mean climatologies and also discrepancies in the monthly time-series distribution, are discussed using common methods in the field of climatology but also more sophisticated, nonparametric approaches such as the Kruskal–Wallis and Dunn’s tests. Results indicate that in the best case, the data sources are found to have statistically significant differences in the distribution of monthly precipitation for about 50% of the study region extent. This percentage is increased up to 70% when particular datasets are compared. Indicatively, the range between the tested rainfall datasets is found to be more than 20% of their mean annual values for most of the extent of MENA, while locally, for the hyper-arid regions, this percentage is increased up to 100%. Precipitation observational uncertainty is also profound for parts of southern Europe. Outlier datasets over individual regions are identified in order to be more cautiously used in future regional climate studies.
Journal Article
Carbon dioxide direct air capture for effective climate change mitigation based on renewable electricity: a new type of energy system sector coupling
Pathways for achieving the 1.5–2 °C global temperature moderation target imply a massive scaling of carbon dioxide (CO2) removal technologies, in particular in the 2040s and onwards. CO2 direct air capture (DAC) is among the most promising negative emission technologies (NETs). The energy demands for low-temperature solid-sorbent DAC are mainly heat at around 100 °C and electricity, which lead to sustainably operated DAC systems based on low-cost renewable electricity and heat pumps for the heat supply. This analysis is carried out for the case of the Maghreb region, which enjoys abundantly available low-cost renewable energy resources. The energy transition results for the Maghreb region lead to a solar photovoltaic (PV)-dominated energy supply with some wind energy contribution. DAC systems will need the same energy supply structure. The research investigates the levelised cost of CO2 DAC (LCOD) in high spatial resolution and is based on full hourly modelling for the Maghreb region. The key results are LCOD of about 55 €/tCO2 in 2050 with a further cost reduction potential of up to 50%. The area demand is considered and concluded to be negligible. Major conclusions for CO2 removal as a new energy sector are drawn. Key options for a global climate change mitigation strategy are first an energy transition towards renewable energy and second NETs for achieving the targets of the Paris Agreement.
Journal Article
COUPS AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN THE MAGHREB – BETWEEN THE HUNGER FOR POWER AND THE QUEST FOR DEMOCRACY / LES COUPS D’ETAT ET LES MOUVEMENTS SOCIAUX DANS L’ESPACE MAGHREBIN – ENTRE LA SOIF DE POUVOIR ET LA QUETE DE DEMOCRATIE
In any society, change and political renewal are more than necessary for a good and healthy governance. However, political alternation remains rare in Africa, particularly in French-speaking countries, fact that turned this region, at the beginning of the 2000s, into one of old, authoritarian or semi-democratic regimes not willing to give up the power. This article will focus on the types of actions (coups, revolutions, riots) that have challenged these regimes since the independence of the countries until now. We will analyze the context in which these actions emerged and the way in which they are more or less skillfully managed by the regimes.
Journal Article