Mélanie fires missiles. Somewhat infrequently. That’s because since 2002, when she joined the French Air Force, there have been no enemy air threats against any French military operations. I met her on the disused air force base of Brétigny, just south of Paris, where she’d been rehearsing for the Bastille Day (14th July) parade with her surface-to-air defence squadron (EDSA), whose mission is to protect military installations and points of vital importance, and to support the ground forces. The squadron has also recently been given the responsibility for countering malicious airborne drones. Delighted to be able to chat face-to-face rather than by video link, as had become the norm since the Covid outbreak, I interviewed Mélanie in a military tent, sheltering from the intermittent rain. 

She told me it was Commander Hervé Moreau, commander of the 02.950 “Sancerre” Ground-to-Air Defence Squadron located at the 702 “Georges Madon” air base in Avord, who asked if she wanted to drive the P4 (small, open-topped jeep) transporting himself and the flag holder at the head of the squadron's vehicles in the military parade down the Champs Elysées in Paris last week. It was a more complicated task than one might imagine. Mélanie not only had to practice driving at 15 kmh, but she also helped choose the vehicle and ensured it was in tip-top condition. 

Of the squadron’s nine vehicles in the parade, two were carrying the Crotale NG short-range surface-to-air weapon systems and mock missiles and four were transporting MAMBA (medium-range surface-to-air) missiles. These two types of missiles are fired from lorry-mounted ramps which makes these defence systems very mobile and easily deployable to sites that need protection.

As a child, Mélanie wanted to be a firefighter, like her grandfather. “But I failed the tests to be a professional firefighter and it was a boy from my basketball club who suggested that I try the military,” she said.

A native of Montluçon, in central France, it was during a visit to the 702 air base in Avord, about 100 kms to the north, that she discovered surface-to-air artillery. “I was fascinated, curious. I wondered how they worked.” And then, accustomed to being in a team thanks to basketball, “the teamwork, the rules, the codes intrigued me” so much so that she passed the written exams and physical tests to enter the air force even before “passing my accounting baccalaureate,” she laughs.

Mélanie willingly admits to having been a “tomboy” and as she was very sporty and, moreover, extremely fit for her competitive basketball team, the physical tests for admission to the air force were not a problem. Neither was adaptation to military life. “I adapted very fast and quickly understood where my place was,” she says. Following basic training in Saintes, “I continued my training for the ground-to-air artillery specialty in Mont-de-Marsan with three boys. We were a real team,” she remarks.

A silver medalist in the French military basketball championship, Mélanie compensates her medium height with dynamism and willpower, traits that come across quickly in this interview. She confirms that she doesn’t let anyone walk over her, especially not her male colleagues. “Even though there was some jealousy from the guys when I achievedsomething that they hadn't, I never had a problem. Even though I was the same age as them, I was, like most girls, more mature, so I was the sort of mother figure! And then you have to know how say ‘no’...”

Married to a chief warrant officer met eight months after joining up, Mélanie smiles “that we hid our relationship for almost a year, shaking hands when we met in the morning on the base... even though we were living together!!” Today they have two children aged 12 and 9. Has motherhood changed her attitude towards her work? “Of course! Children always come first. They are totally used to the fact that one or the other of their parents can be absent for long weeks but everything is going very, very well,” she stresses, “especially thanks to all the means of communication available to ustoday.” Between September 2019 and January 2020 Mélanie was deployed with the EDSA in Niamey, Niger with France’s anti-terrorism “Operation Barkhane” “and it was a little hard not to be with the family to open Christmas presents,” she admits. “So you have to love your job.”

In 2016 Mélanie made use of the system which allows a rank and file soldier to become a non-commissioned officer. “I wanted more responsibility after renewing my initial four-year contract three times and now I would like to continue and become a career non-commissioned officer,” she says. She will be able to retire from the military at 47, young enough to start another professional life. “Knowing myself, I think I will probably do something entirely different,” she smiles.