Sophie Pedder

Sophie Pedder
Born	1967
Alma mater	University of Oxford University of Chicago
Awards	David Watt Prize (2006) Knight of the National Order of Merit (2022)

Sophie Pedder is a British journalist and author, who is Paris bureau chief for The Economist newspaper 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 entered 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]

Awards

• David Watt Prize [de] (2006)^{[n. 1]}

Works

• Pedder, Sophie (2007). Blairkozy ou Ségoblair?. Michalon.^[13]
• Pedder, Sophie (2012). Le déni français: Les derniers enfants gâtés de l'Europe. Paris: JC Lattès.^[14]
• Pedder, Sophie (2018). Emmanuel Macron and the Quest to Reinvent a Nation.
  Bloomsbury Continuum.^[15]

Citations