He's an Arab punk rocker. He's a provocateur who criticizes Arab governments. He's a romantic who sprinkles conversations with sex references. Oh, yeah -- he's also a budding screenwriter and novelist, not to mention a jokester who says his success with singing is almost a fluke.

"When you come from the Third World, and you're a kid growing up there, your dream is to become a doctor or an engineer," says Rachid Taha, who was born and raised in Algeria. "The working class never dreams of having a musical career; the upper class dreams of that."

Taha is speaking on the phone from Paris, where he lives when he's not performing around the world. Tuesday night, Taha will be in San Francisco on his latest tour, which coincides with the release of "Tekitoi," a new album that's vintage Taha. There's an ode to his Arab roots (the classic song "Ya Rayah," written by Abderrahmane Amrani); there's a hard-sounding riff on the state of Arab politicians ("Safi," which includes the lines, "Our culture in not democratic . . . the rulers have neutered the people"); there's an atmospheric collaboration with a high-profile fan of Taha's (Brian Eno, who orchestrates their song "Dima"); and there's a reworking of a Western standard (the Clash's "Rock the Casbah"). Taha's "Rock El Casbah" features an Egyptian string ensemble, Moroccan flute, Arabic percussion and an up-tempo, playful approach that makes it seem Joe Strummer's work (which is about music fans opposing an oppressive king) was written just for Taha.

Taha, who is 46, has liked punk music since he was a teenager in France. He moved there with his parents, who were strict Muslims, when he was 10. Taha's father worked in a factory -- a job Taha also took when he was young, though at night he spun music as a DJ in his own club. In those days, Taha and other Algerian immigrants living in Lyon were generally prohibited from the regular night spots -- a level of discrimination that made Taha angry and set up his identification with the punk music of the Clash and other groups. Taha has been influenced by a smorgasbord of other musicians, including Elvis Presley; Led Zepplin and Robert Plant; Oum Kalthoum, Egypt's greatest classical singer; and Bollywood groups that perform the big-budget love songs of India's most popular films. Still, it's rock music that Taha has internalized the most. He once told an interviewer, "For me, (my) music is rock 'n' roll, colored by what's inside me -- and what's inside me is I'm European, Arab and Muslim."

Taha, who's released a series of critically acclaimed albums, sings in French and Arabic. Onstage, he likes to wear leather pants and shake his head and longish dark hair into a frenzy like the punk rockers he idolized. Taha is also known to grab himself during songs in a way that accentuates his feeling for a particular lyric. With a voice that's throaty and resonant, and a manner that mixes humor and rebelliousness, Taha has managed to draw large numbers of fans from disparate countries, including Mexico and Russia. Last month, Taha performed with Eno in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Typical of Taha's approach, he invited audience members onstage to dance with him, which they did.

Taha's parents have only seen him once in concert, which is deliberate: He doesn't like them attending his shows. "My parents seeing me onstage would be almost like they were seeing me make love to a woman," he says through an interpreter. "If Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan had their parents in the room, they'd (feel) the same way."

Besides being critical of Arab leaders, Taha points an accusing finger at President Bush, whom he calls a fundamentalist for his role in the Iraq war. Politics, though, is not always on Taha's mind. Romance is a preoccupation, and so the screenplay he's working on has "a love theme," he says, without elaborating. Taha, who has a 20-year-old son from a previous relationship, says one of his biggest thrills in life is "meeting new faces." Years ago, he'd wanted to be a journalist.

"Now," he says, "my message is through music."