There are more people on the streets of Tbilisi today than during the Rose Revolution in 2003.

A connoisseur of European geopolitics

Born on November 10, 1975 in Koutaïssi, Georgia, Thorniké Gordadzé is a Georgian political scientist and politician. One of his grandmothers introduced him to the French language at a very early age, and he began studying it in high school. In 1992, he arrived in France to study in Nantes, where he obtained his baccalauréat, before entering the Bordeaux Institute of Political Studies, from which he graduated in 1996. The following year, he also graduated from the Institut d'études politiques de Paris, before becoming a French citizen in 2001. At the start of his career, he was initially an assistant at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris, writing for various French magazines on the geopolitics of Eastern Europe.

In 2002, he joined Yale University as a research associate and continued his academic career in France after the Rose Revolution. After teaching at the Institut des études politiques de Paris, he obtained his doctorate in 2006, then joined the French Institute for Anatolian Studies (IFEA) and became director of the Caucasus Observatory in Baku until July 2010. At the same time, he is a research associate at the Centre d'études et de recherches internationales (CERI) in Paris, with whom he is carrying out a project on secessionist entities and self-proclaimed states in Europe.

A ministerial and academic career

Although his academic career is already impressive, Thorniké Gordadzé is also making a name for himself at ministerial level. In 2010, he was appointed Deputy Foreign Minister of Georgia by Mikheil Saakashvili. He became responsible for relations with the European Union, particularly with regard to negotiations with Brussels on the association agreement between Georgia and the European Union.

Two years later, he was appointed Minister of State for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration. His term of office ended in October of the same year, following the defeat of the President's party, the United National Movement (MNU), in the parliamentary elections. Thorniké Gordadzé currently teaches at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris (SciencesPo), where he is in charge of the Eastern Neighborhood and Black Sea program at the Institut Jacques Delors.

Participating in the Dialogues européens

On June 3, 4 and 5, Thorniké Gordadzé will be taking part in the Dialogues européens organized by the Institut français in Bucharest. Following on from previous editions, "Face à la guerre - Dialogues européens" highlights, in the context of current geopolitical tensions, the dual challenge of better understanding the narratives that shape local contexts and supporting citizen participation in democratic debate and process in Europe.

The European Dialogues in Bucharest will thus be able to address geopolitical Europe in the face of war and security issues. A series of events are planned with leading figures from research, think tanks, the media and the public sphere to support discussion and debate on the upheavals in Europe brought about by the war in Ukraine.