Sylvie Kauffmann

Sylvie Kauffmann is a French journalist, specializing in foreign affairs. She was Editor-in-Chief of Le Monde in 2010-2011, being the first woman to hold this position. She is currently Le Monde’s Editorial Director, writing editorials and a weekly column on geopolitics.

Sylvie Kauffmann started to work as a journalist for Agence France-Presse. She was posted in London, in New Caledonia (French territory in the South Pacific), and in Moscow. She joined Le Monde in 1988 as Central and Eastern Europe correspondent and covered the fall of the Soviet bloc and the transition of Central European nations to democracy and market economy.

She was then posted in the United States from 1993 to 2001 and in South-East Asia from 2006 to 2009. At Le Monde, she has also worked as reporter-at-large, based in Paris.

Since 2013, she has contributed to the New York Times’ opinion pages and more recently to the Financial Times. She is a regular contributor to L’Esprit Public, a Sunday show on French public radio.

Born in Marseille, Sylvie Kauffmann studied law and politics at the University of Aix-en-Provence. She holds a degree of Spanish from the University of Deusto (Bilbao) and graduated from the Centre de Formation des Journalistes in Paris.

Last updated: 2022