THE INTERVIEW - Olivier Roy, Professor at the European University Institute in Florence

Olivier Roy is a French expert on political Islam. But he is also an original academic, who criss-crossed Afghanistan in the 1970s and later during its war against the Soviet Union, and who has also visited Iran and Central Asia numerous times. This unusual journey is recounted in a book-length interview, published in French and entitled "Looking for the Lost Orient".

In 1992, Olivier Roy made a splash when he wrote a book entitled "The death of Political Islam". More than twenty years later, despite the surge of the Islamic State group and the rise of Islamist parties in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, he still believes that political Islam is dead and that the concept of an Islamic state "never works". He tells France 24's Marc Perelman why.

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