Dear Saudi Friends

I never quite understood why they called Paris the city of love until I moved in the Middle East. I had lived in the US before that, but only in the Middle East, I realized how central love is in my culture. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that if you took love away from French people, most of us wouldn’t know why we would get up in the morning anymore. From a young age, we are raised on this idea that love is the holy grail. We are raised on this idea that if you find love, everything else can fall apart, love will protect you. We have this expression “ vivre d’amour et d’eau fraîche ”, which means “ living off love and fresh water ” I can only guess how exotic that idea must be to people in the Middle East. No wonder we French sometimes come across as romantic butterfly catchers. There are many things that annoy me about French culture, our consistency in thinking we are better than everyone else first comes to my mind, but this thing about love, this is great, defi...

I know people in Saudi Arabia always complain about the fact that westerners keep talking about women’s rights as soon as they discuss Saudi Arabia. I hope you will give me credit for the fact that I have now posted a few articles and this is my first article on the subject. I hope that in the next few years, women’s right will continue to progress, in Saudi Arabia and everywhere else, and that women will become fearless when it comes to going after their dreams. I hope that the rights will progress but I hope that the understanding of gender issues also will progress. It seems to me that women might be misunderstood, but men also are. Allow me to say something about my own experience in this field. About a year ago, I was involved in a conversation on social media about education principles, and this woman, a British lady, baffled me by saying that separate schools for boys and girls were the best and that we should return to it. It really baffled me. She explained how ...