Myriam François Explained

Myriam François
Birth Date:[1]
Birth Place:Camden, London, England[2]
Occupation:Journalist, filmmaker, writer, academic, former child actress
Website:www.myriamfrancois.com
Nationality:British, French

Myriam François (born and legally named Emilie Siobhan Geoghegan François; December 1982[1]), formerly known as Myriam François-Cerrah, is a British journalist, filmmaker and writer. Her work has appeared on the BBC, Channel 4 and Al Jazeera. She is the founder and CEO[3] of production company mpwr productions, which specialises in documentary films centred on minority voices.

Early life and career

François was born in Camden, London, to an Irish mother and a French father.[4] She attended a French school in London and is bilingual. She was born Emilie François, but has used Myriam instead of her given name since she became Muslim in 2004.[5]

François was a child actress whose performance in Oscar-winning film Sense and Sensibility (1995) playing Margaret Dashwood earned her critical acclaim. She went on to appear in Paws (1997), alongside Billy Connolly and Nathan Cavaleri, and in New Year's Day (2001).

Education

François holds an MA from Georgetown University (United States) and a BA from the University of Cambridge (UK). She completed her PhD (DPhil) at Oxford University, focusing on Islamic movements in Morocco in 2017.

Career

François was an assistant editor and features writer at Emel magazine (2008–2009) and worked at the Islam Channel in London. She translated Asma Lamrabet's book, Women in the Qur’an: An Emancipatory Reading[6] which won the English Pen Award.[7]

François began her career in documentary filmmaking as a presenter and producer at the BBC. Her first documentary on BBC One, A Deadly Warning: Srebrenica Revisited (2015), was nominated for the Sandford St Martin Religious Programming Award in 2016.[8] In 2016, she presented her second documentary, The Muslim Pound (2016), which explores the growing consumer goods market for Muslims in the UK.[9] She was also a programme researcher and presenter at the BBC and a regular guest on its flagship channel's The Big Questions from 2008 to 2011[10] and on Sunday Morning Live also in 2015.[11] [12] François then worked as a programme producer on Al Jazeera English's Head to Head.[13]

In 2017, François presented The Truth About Muslim Marriage (Channel 4, 2017), which was nominated for Best Investigative Documentary at the Asian Media Awards in 2018.[14] [15] François then joined TRT World as Europe correspondent, covering European breaking news. Between 2017 and 2018, she also developed, produced and presented Compass, a monthly arts and culture documentary for the channel.[16]

In 2019, François left TRT World and began working with BBC World Service, where she produced and presented a series of short documentaries, including Tariq Ramadan: #MeToo in the Muslim World (2018), and Is Brexit-Voting Llanelli Changing Its Mind? (2019) which looks at the impact of Brexit in Llanelli, a Leave-voting town in Wales.[17] [18] In 2019, her documentary City of Refuge, which examined the plight of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, aired on BBC Radio 4 in April and on BBC World service in May.[19] In 2022, she presented the BBC World Service audio documentary When Rape Becomes a Crime, which focuses on rape laws in Senegal.[20] François also began hosting and producing The Big Picture: France in Focus, a four-part series for Al Jazeera English focused on the fault lines within French society.[21]

Writing

François was a correspondent for the Huffington Post (2014–2015), where she broke a headline story on an exclusive 36-page document written by alleged al-Qaeda kingpin Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.[22] She has appeared on Newsnight (2009), 4thought.tv (2011),[23] BBC News (2010),[24] Crosstalk (2010), BBC Radio (2012), Sky News[25] and documentaries including Divine Women, presented by Bettany Hughes.[26]

A former columnist at the New Statesman, François's writing has featured in the British press, including The Guardian, TIME, Foreign Policy, The Telegraph, CNN online and Middle East Eye.[27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32]

François is a former Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Policy (CGP), a think tank where, between 2019 and 2020, she produced an in-depth report looking at the plight of European children of ISIS fighters in camps in Northern Syria, as well as an accompanying piece for Foreign Policy. She has been an outspoken critic of Islamophobia.[33] She is a former research associate at School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London (SOAS), in the Department of the Languages and Cultures of the Near and Middle East, where she researched issues related to British Muslims, integration, and racism.

Her articles also appeared in The Huffington Post,[34] New Statesman,[35] Your Middle East,[36] The London Paper, Jadaliyya,[37] the Australian Broadcasting Corporation,[38] The Daily Telegraph,[39] Salon,[40] Index on Censorship,[41] The F-Word,[42] and the magazine Emel.[43]

Other work

François gave guest lectures at Harvard University (2014), the University of Birmingham (2014), and Luther College (2015) in Decorah, Iowa, and presented an annual guest lecture at Kingston University, in England, in 2012–2014. She spoke at the 2015 HowTheLightsGetsIn at the Hay-on-Wye Festival.[44] She has been a regular presenter at high-profile events, including the Mayor of London's Eid Festival 2019[45] and the London Modest Fashion Festival 2018.[46]

She was a judge for the 2019 Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction books.[47]

Francois appeared on The World with Yalda Hakim during the Red Sea crisis, supporting the Houthis' blockade in aid of Palestine and denouncing Israel's war on Gaza. She also criticised the United States and the Biden administration for bombing Yemen, saying that they are bombing "one of the poorest countries in the world that has been under a humanitarian blockade [...] because [they are] in support for the Palestinians".[48]

Personal life

In 2003, at the age of 21, François became a Muslim after graduating from Cambridge. At the time, she was a sceptical Roman Catholic. She rejects the use of the words "convert" and "revert" as "exclusionary", describing herself as "just Muslim".[49]

François chose to stop wearing a hijab in the 2010s. She said that the subsequent lack of Islamophobia due to her being a white woman in a Western dress made her feel enmeshed in white privilege. Nevertheless, she did not decide to return to the hijab.[2]

Filmography

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Emilie Siobhan Geoghegan FRANCOIS. Companies House. 26 May 2019.
  2. Muslim, 'white' & seeking new forms of solidarity: Myriam François . 13 November 2020 . The Demented Goddess . Myriam . François . The Demented Goddess.
  3. Web site: MPWR Productions . 12 January 2023 . MPWR Productions . en-US.
  4. Heart and Soul: Muslim White Female . BBC Sounds . BBC World Service . . 8 September 2011 . 03:21 . Myriam François-Cerrah, daughter of a French father and an Irish mother....
  5. Web site: Ian . 14 October 2023 . Myriam François Bio, Age, Husband, Hijab, Net Worth, Channel 4 . 11 January 2024 . BiographyScoop . en-US.
  6. Web site: Women in the Qur'an: An Emancipatory Reading. Kube Publishing. en-GB. 12 October 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20190401142047/http://www.kubepublishing.com/shop/women-in-the-quran-an-emancipatory-reading/. 1 April 2019. dead.
  7. Web site: Speakers and panellists . 11 January 2024 . Cardiff University . en.
  8. Web site: BBC One - A Deadly Warning: Srebrenica Revisited . 12 January 2023 . BBC . en-GB.
  9. Web site: BBC One - The Muslim Pound . 12 January 2023 . BBC . en-GB.
  10. Web site: One Programmes – The Big Questions, Series 3, Episode 5 . BBC . 31 January 2010 . 30 September 2011.
  11. Web site: One Programmes – Series 6 Episode 15 . BBC . 4 October 2015. 12 May 2019.
  12. Web site: One Programmes – Series 6 Episode 15 . BBC . 5 July 2015. 12 May 2019.
  13. Web site: Ebor Lecture: Myriam Francois-Cerrah. higheryork. 15 February 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190215215914/http://www.higheryork.org/york-st-john-university6/. 15 February 2019. dead.
  14. Web site: The Truth About Muslim Marriage . 12 January 2023 . True Vision TV . en-GB.
  15. Web site: Myriam Francois's Channel 4 documentary nominated for Asian Media Award. 4 October 2018. Northbank Talent Management. 15 February 2019.
  16. Web site: Compass - TRT World . 12 January 2023 . Compass - TRT World . en.
  17. News: The rock star scholar and the rape claims . en-GB . BBC News . 12 January 2023.
  18. News: Is Brexit-voting Llanelli changing its mind? . en-GB . BBC News . 12 January 2023.
  19. Web site: BBC Radio 4 - City of Refuge . 12 January 2023 . BBC . en-GB.
  20. Web site: BBC World Service - The Documentary Podcast, When rape becomes a crime . 12 January 2023 . BBC . 26 May 2022 . en-GB.
  21. Web site: France in Focus . 12 January 2023 . Al Jazeera . en.
  22. Web site: Mastermind Of The Sept. 11 Attacks Wants To Convert His Captors . The Huffington Post . François-Cerrah, Myriam . 14 January 2014.
  23. Web site: Myriam Francois Cerrah (2011) [Should Muslims adapt to Britain or should Britain adapt to Muslims?] ]. https://web.archive.org/web/20211222135544/https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4de8bf7a25543 . dead . 22 December 2021 . British Film Institute . Alternative titles... 4thought.tv[17/03/2011] . 30 September 2011.
  24. News: Impact Asia – A veiled threat or an attack on faith? . BBC News . 13 July 2010 . 30 September 2011.
  25. News: Myriam Francois . New Lines Institute.
  26. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01g8ck1 Divine Women
  27. Web site: Myriam François . 12 January 2023 . The Guardian . en.
  28. Myriam Francois . 12 January 2023 . Time . en.
  29. Web site: François . Myriam . Myriam François . 12 January 2023 . Foreign Policy . October 2021 . en-US.
  30. Web site: Myriam Francois-Cerrah . 12 January 2023 . The Telegraph . 21 November 2017 . en-GB.
  31. Web site: Francois . Myriam . 7 September 2016 . Forget the burkini ban: France's Muslims have much bigger problems . 12 January 2023 . CNN . en.
  32. Web site: Myriam François . 12 January 2023 . Middle East Eye . en.
  33. Web site: Myriam François . 12 January 2023 . Foreign Policy . October 2021 . en-US.
  34. Web site: Why a War With Iran is the Real Threat . The Huffington Post . François-Cerrah, Myriam . 26 January 2012 . 11 March 2012.
  35. Web site: When does it not pay to be Muslim? . The New Statesman . François-Cerrah, Myriam . 14 December 2011 . 11 March 2012.
  36. Web site: Morsi must become a leader for all Egyptians . Your Middle East . François-Cerrah, Myriam . 29 April 2013.
  37. Web site: Olivier Roy on Laicite as Ideology, the Myth of 'National Identity' and Racism in the French Republic . Jadaliyya . François-Cerrah, Myriam . 16 May 2015.
  38. Web site: Face Veils and Miniskirts: Whose Interests are Served in France's Republic of Men? . ABC (Australia) . François-Cerrah, Myriam . 27 April 2015.
  39. Web site: Why banning Sharia courts would harm British Muslim women . The Telegraph . François-Cerrah, Myriam . 17 July 2014.
  40. Web site: Bill Maher's horrible excuse: Why his defense of Islamophobia just doesn't make any sense . Salon . François-Cerrah, Myriam . 13 October 2014.
  41. Web site: Tunisia: France's faux pas . Index on Censorship . François-Cerrah, Myriam . 15 January 2011 . 30 September 2011 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110122045432/http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2011/01/tunisia-france%E2%80%99s-faux-pas/ . 22 January 2011 . dead .
  42. Web site: Articles by Myriam Francois-Cerrah . The F-Word . 20 July 2009 . 30 September 2011.
  43. Web site: Sailing Towards The Divine . . 27 June 2011 . 30 September 2011.
  44. Web site: Progressive politics takes centre stage at HowTheLightGetsIn. 27 April 2015.
  45. Web site: Everything you need to know about Eid Festival in London. 6 June 2019. Evening Standard. en. 10 June 2019.
  46. Web site: We are pleased to announce that Dr Myriam Francois will be hosting Modest Fashion Festival. admin. Modest Fashion Festival. en-GB. 10 June 2019.
  47. Web site: Dr Myriam Francois . The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction . 13 January 2019.
  48. Web site: Dr Myriam Francois: 'I'm sorry your Amazon packages are delayed... but, genocide, guys' . 23 January 2024 . Sky News . en.
  49. Web site: Don't call me "convert" nor "revert" for that matter . François-Cerrah, Myriam . 16 August 2014 . Muslimvillage.com. Originally published on 15 June 2013 as a WordPress entry of hers titled . Her blog no longer exists.

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