Simon Malley (May 25, 1923 – September 7, 2006), was a prominent Syrian Egyptian[1] francophone journalist and a strong supporter of Third World independence movements.
Malley was "one of the best known francophone journalists of his generation" and a "partisan, fearless and controversial" writer who spoke and wrote easily in both French and English as well as his native Arabic, according to his obituary in The Guardian of London.
[citation needed] He moved to France in 1969, where he founded the journal "Africasia" (its name was changed to "Afrique Asie" later on; he also began a second magazine called L'Economiste du Tiers Monde and also then edited an English version which was called Africasia) and was led by his wife, Barbara Malley .
[1] Afrique Asie became a longtime critic of the regimes of King Hassan II of Morocco and Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, among others.
In the airport at New York, an airline employee helped him avoid customs in order to take another flight, and he spent eight months in Geneva, Switzerland editing his journal until the election of President François Mitterrand, then returned to France with the assent of the new administration.