Elegant and slender silhouette dressed in a black outfit that looks expensive, bright red on her full lips, proud head carriage, a queen. Former model Farida Khelfa, author of documentaries and a recent punchy autobiography, A French childhood (Albin Michel, 256 pages, 19.90 euros), receives us at Loulou, a chic and cozy establishment in the first arrondissement of the capital.
The restaurant room was opened especially for her before the evening service, she is used to it there. When we arrive, she poses for our photographer: it goes quickly, she knows her job. Was she not a muse of Jean-Paul Goude, Jean Paul Gaultier, then of the fashion designer Azzedine Alaïa? She asks for an additional photo with her cell phone, ” a memory “, as if she wanted to keep track of the attention she was suddenly the subject of. Because the release of her book transformed Farida Khelfa’s life into a real whirlwind. Since the beginning of January, it has been everywhere, from full pages in glossy magazines, from prime time radio and television shows, to more confidential, trendy or popular media, podcasts or local media. One day, we see her parading for Thierry Mugler or in an evening dress at a charity dinner next to Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni, her friend and wedding witness, another with a team from France 3 Rhône -Alpes in the Minguettes district of Lyon, where she grew up.
The former model was the first surprise of the enthusiasm generated by her book. ” I did not expect that. I receive hundreds of messages from people of all ages, from all origins, from all social backgrounds, it touches me enormously. I pinch myself sometimes: is all this true? » What is true in any case is that her story cannot leave one indifferent: it jostles, disturbs, hits, fascinates with its freedom of tone and the frankness with which it recounts a terrible childhood and an extraordinary trajectory. Because it was not the social elevator that the girl from the city of Minguettes, born to Algerian parents, took, but a supersonic plane which propelled her from one planet to another, from the ZUP zone. to the upper bourgeoisie, a world in which she evolves with naturalness and ease on the arm of her husband and father of her children, the entrepreneur Henri Seydoux. “I am very adaptable! »she laughs, enjoying the view of the Tuileries gardens and the Louvre.
“The torture chamber”
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