Professor Hermassi is an academician and former Tunisian minister. He received his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the Sorbonne in 1962, studied sociology in Paris in 1966, and gained his PhD degree in sociology from the University of California in 1971.

From 1971 to 1992, Dr. Hermassi taught sociology in various universities in Tunisia and California. In 1992, he was appointed ambassador of the Republic of Tunisia to UNESCO.

Dr. Hermassi was Tunisia’s minister of culture from 1996 to 2004 and then minister of foreign affairs. In 2006, Dr. Hermassi traveled to the United Arab Emirates where he worked as an advisor at Centre for Strategic Studies in Abu Dhabi. In 2008, he returned to Tunisia as president of the Supreme Council for Communication.

Dr. Hermassi has conducted studies on political and cultural sociology and is author of several books, including Employment Movement Tunisia, The State and Society in the Arab Maghreb, A New Look at the Third World, The Arab Maghreb in Face of International Changes, and The Third World Again.