Nathalie, candidate for "Amour est dans le Pré", courageously testifies to the violence she suffered from her ex-husband, whom she managed to leave. She is now rebuilding her life.
TheLove is in the Meadow, it's off for a new season (the sixteenth!). Year after year, more and more women are appearing on the show. In the French agricultural sector, they represent one in three people, and even one in four at the head of their farm (2020 figures from the Ministry of Agriculture). Nathalie is one of them. A flirtatious farmer, she confides in the presentation portrait, revealing a complex and resilient face.
"I was very young and didn't realize, I loved him, what"
Indeed, Nathalie, mother of two children, confides her childhood love illusions. Her husband, met at 16, turns out to be a violent man from the start. Under the influence, as is the case in many cases of domestic violence, Nathalie suffered violence for 18 years. She says, very moved: "I was very young and I didn't realize it, I loved him, what. And then I got really bad and it was stop what."
Leaving takes courage. The associations warn that it is often at the time of departure that a woman is most in danger of serious or even fatal violence … It is thanks to her eldest daughter that Nathalie will find the courage to leave. She said to her one day: "If you don't leave him, I'll take my two brothers." This did not fail to make Internet users react, touched by the courage of the operator.
Divorce is difficult, Nathalie's spouse wanting to start from scratch. Her testimony shows how difficult it is to leave: she finds herself with little or nothing, forced to be helped by the Restos du Cœur to survive. The farmer nevertheless shows a courage and a force of resilience to cope: "I fought, I brought up the operation, I was so passionate that it brought me back up."
Today she is the head of her calf farm in Loire-Atlantique and works with two of her children on the farm. Nathalie still dreams of love, with "a handyman, a nice guy, a prince charming, someone who soothes me, who is protective, who likes to laugh and who does not smoke". That's all we wish for him.