Paul Charon is Director for " Intelligence, Strategic Foresight and Hybrid Threats " at the Institute for Strategic Research (IRSEM). He holds a PhD in Political Studies from the School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) and an MBA (HEC). He has also been trained in Chinese language and civilisation (Paris Diderot University and Beijing Language and Culture University, BLCU), rhetoric (Harvard, Paris-Nanterre University), literature (Paris-Nanterre University) and law (Panthéon-Assas University). Prior to joining IRSEM, he worked for more than ten years as an intelligence analyst and then as a strategic foresight adviser for the French Ministry of Armed Forces. He was an associate researcher at the Franco-Chinese Antenna in Humanities and Social Sciences at Qinghua University in Beijing. His work focuses on China (intelligence services, information warfare), intelligence analysis, anticipating strategic surprises techniques, and the relations between fiction and intelligence. He teaches at Sciences Po Paris, Sciences Po Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Panthéon-Assas University, the Institute for Higher National Defence Studies, and Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid.