Jean-Christophe Rufin (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ kʁistɔf ʁyfɛ̃]; born 28 June 1952) is a French doctor, diplomat, historian and novelist. He is the president of Action Against Hunger, one of the earliest members of Médecins Sans Frontières, and a member of the Académie française.
Rufin was born in Bourges, Cher in 1952. An only child, he was raised by his grandparents as his father had left the family and his mother worked in Paris. His grandfather, a doctor and member of the French Resistance during World War II had been imprisoned for two years at Buchenwald.
In 1977, after medical school, Rufin went to Tunisia as a volunteer doctor. He led his first humanitarian mission in Eritrea, where he met Azeb, who became his second wife.
he married Ingrid Glowacki at the Embassy of France in Tirana, Albania on 25 April 2025.
Rufin held a number of diplomatic posts. In 1989 he was cultural attaché in Brazil, and in 1993 he became a special adviser in strategic thinking on North-South relations to François Léotard, then Minister of Defence. In 2007, he was appointed French ambassador to Dakar.
A graduate of the Institut d'études politiques de Paris (Sciences-Po), in 1986 he became advisor to the Secretary of State for Human Rights and published his first book, Le Piège humanitaire (The Humanitarian Trap), an essay on the political stakes of humanitarian action.
As a doctor, he is one of the pioneers of humanitarian movement "without borders," for which he has led numerous missions in eastern Africa and Latin America. A former vice-president of Médecins Sans Frontières and former president of the non-governmental organization Action Against Hunger.
Dr. Jean-Christophe Rufin was appointed President of the Sanofi Espoir Corporate Foundation on 18 September 2020.
Report on racism and antisemitism
In 2003, Rufin was commissioned by French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin to write an in-depth report on the upsurge of antisemitism in France. He presented the final report on 19 October 2004.
The "Rufin report" (as it later became known), as described by the US State Department, concluded the following:
Racism and antisemitism were a threat to French democracy.
Antisemitic acts are not only carried out by elements of the extreme right and youths of North African descent, but also by "disaffected individuals" whose antisemitic obsessions prompt their attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions.
Radical anti-Zionists who question Israel's right to exist were dangerous.
The report, as described by the US State Department, recommended the following actions:
That a law be created to punish those publicly equating Israel with apartheid or Nazi Germany.
That the French press law of 1881, designed to guarantee freedom of the press, is too unwieldy to adequately address the issues of racism.
That intolerance be countered in primary schools and by the education of new immigrants about the fight against racism and antisemitism.