Anne-Laure thinks ahead and is well-organised. Enlisted in the French Army since 2015, she has just recently signed a second six-year contract, a year longer than her first one. Until earlier this year she was the only female gun-turret operator in the 1st Hunter Regiment. But, at the end of 2020, knowing full well that squeezing around the interior of a Leclerc tank is not practicable for a pregnant woman, she requested a job more suited to a personal situation she was planning for 2021. And it’s a good thing she did because she and her husband’s plans to start a family are coming to fruition. Baby Jules should make his appearance in early November!

Uniforms have always attracted Anne-Laure. The one worn in the army is not the first she tried on. That one was blue and she wore it as a policewoman in Metz. “I’ve always wanted to be either in the police, the gendarmerie or the army,” she grins.

Before starting her career in the police, Anne-Laure passed an economy and social sciences (ES) baccalaureate in a sports-study school because she is a talented table tennis player. She took part in the French secondary school level championships as well as other competitions representing her club in Metz. She then started a BTEC Higher National Diploma in management “but I wasn’t actually terribly interested and so at the end of the first term I applied to the police and stopped my studies.”

But “even if I liked the police, I found it wasn’t adventurous enough.” So she applied for and passed the selection tests for the army but stresses that “I remained at my post in the police force until the day before I joined the army.” 

She chose the 1st Hunter Regiment because it is based in Verdun, not far from home, and “because it’s an all-weapons fighting regiment so offers a broad range of possible careers,” she explains. Anne-Laure very quickly chose to pilot the VBL light armoured vehicle and was deployed on various missions in France. She laughs kindly when I ask her if driving this kind of vehicle is like driving a city car. “Not really because you have to pay particular attention to the surface you’re driving on and adapt your driving accordingly.” And then at the end of the first year she was asked if she’d like to train as a gunner on the Leclerc tank: the person responsible for the turret-mounted gun. “It’s immediately very impressive and I loved it," she enthuses, adding that “to serve on the Leclerc tank is a great opportunity.”

She was the only girl amongst the 15 trainees from five regiments who attended the tank gunner course at the Canjuers camp in south-eastern France, the biggest military training ground in Western Europe. Her co-trainees baited her gently until she proved herself and they understood who they were dealing with: Anne-Laure graduated from the course in first place! “I always work twice as hard to prove that I ‘m capable,” she says. “When you're a girl in this environment you have to chase your ambition, you mustn't let people walk over you, you have to go for it and not worry about what others may think,” she advises.

A tank team is made up of three people: the pilot, the tank commander and the gunner. All have “just enough room to sit” except that the gunner is seated in the rotating turret. “Imagine a vehicle with a rotating yoghurt pot in the centre. Well, I'm sitting at the bottom inside that yoghurt pot,” she laughs. She adds that there are always two in the tank “seeking out targets” but it is principally her responsibility to fire the gun. This perpetual movement would make a lot of people throw-up. Luckily, Anne-Laure is “not sick in the tank.”

She doesn’t spend all day inside the tank! “There is a lot of continuous training on tanks. We have to know how to deal with breakdowns and change the tracks, and then there is a lot of preparation before and after a sortie: we have to help our colleagues clean the tank and after firing it’s always the gunner who cleans the barrel.” With what? “Well, a thing that looks like a big cotton swab!" she laughs.

She has fond memories of her three deployments which each lasted four months: two in the United Arab Emirates, which also owns Leclerc tanks, and one in Côte d’Ivoire, which owns none, so she was in a VBL.

But “being in a tank crew and pregnant is incompatible” so in anticipation of starting a family she asked for a transfer to a desk job. “I was lucky because I was given several choices and today I’m in the regimental operations and instructions office where I can make good use of my ES baccalaureate and my term of management studies because I do budget management,” she explains.

It’s very different from being a gunner but she’s nevertheless enjoying herself and thinking of staying “in the same job” after her son is born.

Eventually she will become a non-commissioned officer, as she has already been offered the training, but that won’t be until her son is weaned.