Sophie Pedder | |
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Born | 1967 |
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Awards |
Sophie Pedder is a British journalist and author, who is Paris bureau chief for The Economist and a specialist on France. She is a biographer of French President Emmanuel Macron.[1]
Born in London, she obtained a first-class degree at the University of Oxford (St John's College) and a MA at the University of Chicago, where she was a post-graduate Fulbright scholar.[2] Before working for The Economist, Pedder was a research assistant for Professor William Julius Wilson at the University of Chicago’s Urban Poverty and Family Life project.[3] She joined The Economist in 1990. Following a spell as correspondent in South Africa from 1994 to 1997, when she covered the end of apartheid,[4] Pedder returned to write about European politics from London and became the Paris bureau chief in 2003.[5] She has also collaborated as political commentator for BBC and CNN,[6] and has written for Prospect, Foreign Affairs, Le Monde, Paris-Match and Le Figaro, among other media outlets.[7]
It was in Pedder's interview with Emmanuel Macron for The Economist on 7 November 2019 that he declared the "brain death" of NATO,[8] a phrase that stirred global political controversy.[9]
Her biography of the French president, Revolution Française: Emmanuel Macron and the quest to reinvent a nation, was described by The Wall Street Journal as "a terrific first draft of a history with significance far beyond the borders of France."[10][11]