Did you know that Léa Salamé changed her first name when she was 13? We explain to you here why the journalist changed her first name.
Before making the rich hours of France Inter, Lea Salame was called Hala. A first name that brings her back to her native Beirut, which the journalist left with her parents to go to Paris at the age of 5 when the Lebanon War broke out. Naturalized five years later, she continued her studies at the Lycée Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague, in the 16th arrondissement, then at the École alsacienne in the 6th arrondissement. It’s there that the young woman changes her first name and opts for Léa. A new identity under which she will study law at Panthéon-Assas University before joining the ranks of Sciences Po and then pursuing a brilliant career as a journalist.
Why did Hala Salamé change her first name? “I am 13 or 14 years old and when I change schools, I say to my mother: ‘I will change the order [de mon prénom]I will write Lea Hala and you’re not going to tell dad.‘ I was sure my father was going to say: ‘She does not assume'”, she remembers facing the reporter of the Figaro Guyonne de Montjou in the program Libre à Vous. Only, the teenager discovers that the French have trouble pronouncing the aspirated “h”. When we don’t call her “Allah” out of pure mockery, we ask her why her parents called her God. “It was something that pained me because they couldn’t pronounce it. And so I changed the name. It was Lea Hala.” And to add: “My parents always call me Hala.” A double surname written on his identity card “because'[elle a voulu] absolutely keep [son] lebanese first name.
This other little detail that made Léa Salamé suffer
Mocked because of his first name, Lea Salame very quickly wanted to blur his difference, whether surname or even physical. “I wanted to be like everyone else. I wanted to have a mother from Creuse and a father from Brittany. I also wanted to have blue eyes“, she told our colleagues from Konbini last month. A difference that it would take her time to accept. “Clearly, my Lebanese and Armenian origins, that’s my strength today. That’s what made me spotted later and made this career.”, continues the journalist. This difference, this one also felt it when she was criticized for being top “oriental”, despite his Catholic faith. A remark that, on the other hand, did not let his mother pass. “One day, my mother said to them: ‘Yes, my daughter is oriental, she is proud of it and we are proud to be oriental!’ And I thought that was good.”