Before posing for the photo, Fatma Bouvet de la Maisonneuve makes a point of putting on a little lipstick.
“For me, being feminine is important,” explains this elegant woman, leather biker jacket on the back, black heels, frail figure and warm voice.
It is a form of emancipation in a society where all the codes of power and business are still masculine.
"
In her office in Montrouge (Hauts-de-Seine), this psychiatrist sees it every day through the ailments of her patients.
“In the workplace, this notion of shame often comes up to present oneself as female,” adds this 55-year-old doctor.
As if the IQ was soluble in lipstick.
"An additional pressure weighing on women," whose behavior and appearance are constantly judged. "
Fatma Bouvet de la Maisonneuve has made their mental health one of her struggles.
In 2007, this addictologist created the first alcohol consultation dedicated to women at Sainte-Anne hospital.
Support groups are offered in particular.
"Marked by guilt and shame"
At the time, female alcoholism was still a completely taboo subject.
"Fatma's strength was to make her a social subject," underlines Professor Raphaël Gaillard, who heads the psychiatry department of this Parisian hospital.
Most psychiatrists just treat their patients, which is already very good.
She decided to bring this word to the public, which made it possible to move the lines.
Raphaël Gaillard had already seen patients with alcohol problems.
"But I had not perceived that there was a subject as such," he admits.
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"It was taboo for patients and neglected by caregivers", abounds the psychiatrist Christophe André, who worked for many years in this service before retiring in 2019. "Alcoholism is a bit like sexual violence: if you don't talk about it, we won't talk to you about it, continues this specialist in mindfulness mediation, author of many bestsellers on the subject.
Fatma taught us to ask the question and to recognize the specificity of this alcoholism more marked by guilt and shame.
"
Executives are the most affected
Within this consultation, where a nurse and a psychologist also work, the aim is to offer comprehensive care.
"We cannot treat addictions in women without talking about their privacy," says its founder.
Alcoholism in women, often solitary, also has the characteristic of affecting mainly executives, with a high level of responsibility and a lot of pressure: “As the professional factor plays a lot in the consumption of women, I had also observed that many of them had taken advantage of the first confinement to reduce their consumption or to abstain, notes the addictologist.
This is certainly true for those who have a caring family environment.
They felt protected at home.
"
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On the other hand, the deconfinement and the various phases of reconfinement and curfew that followed were an important factor of relapse "with a peak of stress".
“It goes with depression and anxiety,” adds Fatma Bouvet de la Maisonneuve.
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To better support women in their problems of addiction to alcohol and other substances, she also co-founded Addict'elles a little over three years ago.
An association which aims to listen and guide all those who feel the need.
"We want to bring even more visibility to these problems", adds Elsa Taschini, psychotherapist at Sainte-Anne and co-founder of Addict'elles.
In 2010, Fatma Bouvet de la Maisonneuve had also published "Women facing alcohol", one of the first books on the subject.
A click for Sylvie Coulombez-Bru, who is now one of the administrators of the association.
As a senior manager in a large cosmetics company for over eighteen years, she was under enormous daily pressure.
And gradually takes refuge in alcohol.
"This book had helped me to relieve myself of my shame and to realize that I was ill," recalls this former regular at the Montrouge office.
It was a completely innovative approach.
"
"Even today, there is the idea that you can rape a woman who has been drinking with impunity"
Committed and iconoclastic, Fatma Bouvet de la Maisonneuve likes to shake up the codes.
Born in 1965 in Algiers, to Tunisian parents, "activists committed to the independence of the Maghreb", she grew up largely with her grandparents in Tunis, in a "left feminist family".
After graduating from the French lycée in Tunis, this daughter of a dental surgeon and a physics-chemistry teacher entered medical school.
Already passionate about everything concerning women, she hesitates between gynecologist and psychiatrist.
“I have always identified with what they could live, telling myself that it could also have happened to me, analyzes this mother of two children, married to an aristocrat psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.
But in the end, what interested me was above all to protect them from what they might suffer.
"
The deconfinement of the month of May and the re-containment of the fall were important factors in the relapse into alcoholism.
/ LP / Arnaud Dumontier
For her thesis, she chose to study alcoholism in Tunisia.
And devotes a whole chapter to prostitutes in Tunis, whom she will meet.
"It had caused a lot of talk," she smiles.
I wanted to measure the difference between the sexual taboo and that of alcohol.
These are two very closely related things because even today there is the idea that you can rape a woman who has been drinking with impunity.
"
Fatma Bouvet de la Maisonneuve graduated from the equivalent of the boarding school in France and two years later won a scholarship from the World Health Organization (WHO) to finish her two years of psychiatry at Sainte-Anne, where she specializes in addictology.
"The business world is extremely violent"
The young doctor very quickly begins to take vacations there.
At the same time, she is embarking on a master's degree in health marketing.
For nearly ten years, she worked in the pharmaceutical industry, while keeping one foot in the hospital: “It was there that I discovered that the corporate world was extremely violent, especially for women.
"
On the one hand, she sees more and more of her female colleagues who have big responsibilities falling into alcohol.
On the other hand, she has more and more patients who come to see her for alcoholism problems.
The idea of a dedicated consultation arises from these cross observations.
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“Fatma is not a health technician, insists Etienne Caniard, who has just left his post of vice-president of the section of social affairs and health at the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (Cese) where Fatma Bouvet de la Maisonneuve sat for ten years.
She knows that a pathology will only be properly taken care of if it is visible in society.
"She succeeded but she does not forget to perceive the glass ceiling that the others take full force", adds Professor Raphaël Gaillard.
Starting with all those who experience discrimination on a daily basis.
In 2017, the psychiatrist published “An Arab in France” to testify to the stereotypes and prejudices that there may be on both sides of the Mediterranean.
A documentary in the privacy of his office
“When I arrived, I gradually understood that there was a hierarchy of citizens, loose this former socialist who was also a municipal councilor in Montrouge for a term of office.
I never accepted that.
"
To make this suffering heard, the director Stéphane Mercurio put his microphone in the psychiatrist's office for several months.
Broadcast at the beginning of January on France Culture, "I made war", or how to be a "good Arab" makes hear the ailments of these worn and wounded patients even in their privacy by the speeches on Islam or immigration.
"It's important to show that politics has a cost on individuals," says Fatma Bouvet de la Maisonneuve.
In a few months, it is by another means that the psychiatrist will carry the voice of the others.
Her first novel, "Mother's Island", will be released in the spring.
"A story of women obviously", slips the author, who is already working on the second.
