Dear Saudi Friends

Dear Saudi friends, A few months ago, I wrote on Twitter that I had decided to stand up for Saudi Arabia. After living in the region for 8 years, after researching the history and the culture of your country for months, after studying your country’s communication for over a year, I felt I was ready. You might be wondering what the heck I have been doing. You might be questioning if I am really standing up for Saudi Arabia. I am. I’ll admit it, the Khashoggi case has sent me up and down the rollercoaster. I questioned if I had been right to support you and the Crown Prince in the first place, but in that process, over the last few weeks, I actually learnt a lot. It was as if all the demons came out of the box at the same time. It was interesting to observe them, and interesting to observe you, Saudi Arabia facing the stress test. As I said, I learnt a lot. Also it’s sad to say, but I cannot do for you as much as I was hoping I could do. I was hoping...

I was telling you here about how I was raised as a woman, not to fear and how with that freedom, I have gone to places on my own. Lebanon is one of those places I have gone on my own. I love Lebanon, I have gone 5 times, 4 times on my own. A few years ago, while I was there discovering Lebanon beyond Beirut, that thing happened to me. I was staying with friends in the suburbs of Beirut. I had rented a car and decided to go up the mountains to see the cedars on my own. My friends had things to do, I went on my own, I had no issue with that. That morning, leaving Beirut, I had a car accident. The driver’s door was badly damaged, but as the car still worked, I continued on my way up north. Lebanon really is an amazing country, with breathtaking landscapes. I finally made it to the cedars but the park was closed already, the accident and stopping too many times to take pictures had delayed me. I thought I should hurry a bit to make sure I could get home on time. I ...

I told you here how my youth shaped my perception of me as a woman. I also realized while thinking about this that before I moved to the Gulf, I never really saw myself as a woman specifically. I mean, I am a woman, I look like one, I doll up sometimes for special occasions (but certainly not everyday) but mostly I see myself as a human being who just happens to be a female, the same way I am a human being who just happens to have blue eyes. Actually, maybe my blue eyes define me more than my gender, because my blue eyes are not the product of chance, both my parents have fair eyes, while me being a woman is a matter of chance. I have been fascinated how often in this region I have heard sentences like “Women usually are more...” or “Men tend to be less...” It’s not the fact that people might say those sentences, it’s the fact that people think like those description are a product of nature, and not the result of experience, that drives me nuts. I don’t have a stere...

I never quite understood why they called Paris the city of love until I moved in the Middle East. I had lived in the US before that, but only in the Middle East, I realized how central love is in my culture. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that if you took love away from French people, most of us wouldn’t know why we would get up in the morning anymore. From a young age, we are raised on this idea that love is the holy grail. We are raised on this idea that if you find love, everything else can fall apart, love will protect you. We have this expression “ vivre d’amour et d’eau fraîche ”, which means “ living off love and fresh water ” I can only guess how exotic that idea must be to people in the Middle East. No wonder we French sometimes come across as romantic butterfly catchers. There are many things that annoy me about French culture, our consistency in thinking we are better than everyone else first comes to my mind, but this thing about love, this is great, defi...

I know people in Saudi Arabia always complain about the fact that westerners keep talking about women’s rights as soon as they discuss Saudi Arabia. I hope you will give me credit for the fact that I have now posted a few articles and this is my first article on the subject. I hope that in the next few years, women’s right will continue to progress, in Saudi Arabia and everywhere else, and that women will become fearless when it comes to going after their dreams. I hope that the rights will progress but I hope that the understanding of gender issues also will progress. It seems to me that women might be misunderstood, but men also are. Allow me to say something about my own experience in this field. About a year ago, I was involved in a conversation on social media about education principles, and this woman, a British lady, baffled me by saying that separate schools for boys and girls were the best and that we should return to it. It really baffled me. She explained how ...

Dear Saudi friends, As you have seen, France is going through a rough time. It actually caught me a bit off guard that you might be interested in this, as I am myself following things a bit from a distance. I realize from messages I have received that there might be misconceptions about what led to the violence we have seen. So, in case you are interested, here are some elements of context. The trigger for the protest which started a couple of weeks ago is the increase in the oil prices. In France we have two kinds of gas, regular and gasoil. Historically, gasoil was less taxed and overall cheaper, which lead a number of poorer households or people driving a lot to buy a gasoil car (my mum has one of them). From my understanding, the government wants to align the tax between regular gas and gasoil. But instead of doing it incrementally, as some politicians have suggested, they have decided to do it in one go, which means an increase of something like 7 cents a liter ...

Yesterday, I received an email from a Saudi I know from Twitter. We had discussed in length before, not politics but a common interest we have. Over the last few days however, things had gone downward. He was obviously unhappy with me and I was quite sure it was because of something he misunderstood about me. But he wouldn't back down. His email last night was very harsh, he was criticizing me, saying that I “lecture and preach against Saudi Crown Prince actions and the issues of Saudi Arabia” while I said nothing about what was going on in France. I was very annoyed by this email and especially by its tone, but as some of you might share this opinion, I thought I should write a post about it. Do I lecture and preach against the Crown Prince? Do I highlight the issues of Saudi Arabia? I don’t. I absolutely don’t. I realize however, and I am sometimes considering stopping this column for that particular reason, that some of you don’t understand the difference ...