A chance encounter with a French Air Force officer at a career's workshop, a chat with a fireman friend and a car accident were pivotal moments in Wing Commander Caroline's* life. “I was doing a physics degree but I also wanted to be a professional violinist. The car accident made me realise that life is short and worth living to the full and the chat with my friend about values and public service together with the encounter at the career's workshop all contributed to my decision to join the military,” she explains. 

Nobody in her family had been in the armed forces so her parents insisted she finish her undergraduate degree first. “I wasn't quite ready to join the military anyway,” she remarks, so she started a master's degree. But a few months later, she changed her mind “so I stopped my studies and joined the Air Force as a non-commissioned officer in January 1999.”

She'd hesitated between the Air Force and the Navy. The Army, she'd decided, was not for her: “very hard, and not sure I'd pass the physical tests.” Although originally from Brittany, a traditional recruitment pool for the Navy, “I found the idea of working on aircraft more exciting than ships.” So, the Air Force it was.

But, why, as a university graduate, did she not join as an officer? I ask. “Nobody told me!” she says somewhat bashfully. “But I don't regret it at all because I have a good understanding now, as an officer, of the challenges faced by non-commissioned officers, having been there myself.” Given her interest in technology, combined with poor eye-sight which precluded a career as a pilot or an air-traffic controller, she opted very cheerfully to become a mechanic.

“There were very, very few women amongst the mechanics, but it was never a problem, she stresses. The only sexist incident in her career, “and it was very exceptional and has never happened again”, was as a newly qualified mechanic when a pilot whose plane she had prepared asked a male mechanic to check her work “because he didn't trust that I'd done the job properly!” But, she laughs, “the director of the service heard the comment and rapped the pilot's knuckles over the incident.”

Three years later she passed the officers' exam and spent two years (instead of three given her military past) at the Air Force school in Salon de Provence. 

The guiding light of her career “has always been to ensure that I was happy doing my job. I've had opportunities and a little bit of luck, which have allowed me to quietly climb up the ranks.”

She has twice commanded units. Most recently was last year as commander of the Aeronautical Technical Support Squadron (known in France as ESTA, or Escadron de soutien technique aéronautique) at the Colonel Constantin Rozanoff Air Force base 118 at Mont-de-Marsan in south-west France which is where the Rafale combat aircraft is based. “I had about 650 mechanics, including 60 women, under my command,” Caroline explains. “Our mission was to prepare the aircraft: Rafales, Mirages and Alpajets so that they were mission ready. Some people prepared the aircraft whilst others handled repairs and maintenance. We also ensured that documented instructions were adhered to and personnel well trained. That way aircraft fly safely.”

“It was a super-rich experience, super interesting. It was one of the jobs where I learnt the most,” she says enthusiastically.

She's spending this academic year in Paris at the Ecole de Guerre, the war college, after passing a stiff exam to get in and is clearly enjoying herself. “If we're here it's to be primed for strategic jobs,” she explains. “This is a year for us to sit back and take stock: there are 57 different nationalities and a number of civilians too. We're learning to know ourselves, to understand the world around us, to command and to express ourselves in every circumstance.”

Meanwhile, her Air Force non-commissioned officer husband and two teenage daughters are home in south-west France. “I go home every weekend but he's entirely responsible while I'm away,” she says, conceding a little wistfully that she has lost control of the time she spends with her family and “lost the high-ground where interpersonal relationships are concerned.” Her husband is also the cook of the family “thankfully! Given my very poor cookery skills,” she smiles.

Caroline openly admits that she is extremely fortunate that her husband “has always fully supported my professional moves. Without that support I would not have had the career I've had.”

But for both their careers to work, both they and the Air Force human resources department have been careful that he is never under her direct orders. “It's only happened once, when I was younger and it was complicated and uncomfortable for both of us.”

Her advice to young women looking for a career where respect, integrity, excellence and a sense of public service are the values (those of the French Air Force), is that “you should be looking at the wealth of jobs the Air Force offers women today.”

* the equivalent rank in some air forces is Lt Colonel. Media in France are currently required not to reveal surnames of most military personnel.