“Knowledge of the past sheds light on the present”

You publish Israel/Palestine , co-written with researcher Vincent Lemire. What is your approach?

We wanted to do educational work on a very complex conflict. A former history teacher, I am convinced that knowledge of the past allows us to understand present issues and avoid being exploited by those who stir up anger.

Your latest cultural favorite?

Darkness and night by Michael Connelly, thriller evoking “incels” in the United States, these single men who hate women. By bringing together scattered current events, novelists decipher the contemporary world.

The music that makes you happy in the morning?

That of Zaho de Sagazan! It’s delightful to hear a 24-year-old artist reinventing variety, with her way of chanting lyrics and working on rhythm.

The film you could watch a hundred times?

Caesar and Rosalie by Claude Sautet, a jewel on the subtlety of love, the one we live, the one we have lost, the one who returns. I watched it at 20, at 40, at 50, and I identified sometimes with Romy Schneider, sometimes with Sami Frey… It’s like an open book where you can slip in a lot of yourself .

The person who meant the most in your family?

My resilient grandmother, lady of the heart, volunteer who tried to pass on her values ​​to me. I went to spend my vacation with her, in Nancy (Meurthe-et-Moselle), and I cried every time I had to leave her. She died in 1995, but I think of her every day.

A good plan to reconnect with nature?

Pointe du Hourdel, the end of the world populated by seals, off the coast of Saint-Valery-sur-Somme.

For what cause would you mobilize?

That of women. In 2021, four of them who filed a complaint against Patrick Poivre d’Arvor for assault trusted me and came to testify on my show CPolitics . I’m very proud of it.

Pope Francis grants you an audience. What question is burning on your lips?

I, who am not a believer, would ask him for the secret of faith which, when it is not blind, enlightens.