François Heisbourg

François Heisbourg is a French security diplomat, currently serving as special advisor at the Fondation pour la RechercheStratégique in Paris, France, a position which he has held since May 2005 after serving as Director from 2001 until 2005. Heisbourg held positions with the French Foreign Ministry’s policy planning staff and with the French Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. He served as an international security advisor to the French Minister of Defence and was a founding member of the French-German Commission on Security and Defence. He was Vice President at Thomson-CSF and, in 1987, became Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London. He currently chairs the Foundation Council of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) and the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). He was a member of the International Commission on the Balkans (2004-2006). He was a member of the presidential commission of the French Defence and National Security White Paper and a member of the Steering Committee of the French Government’s White Paper on Terrorism.