Guest of Europe Soir, journalist Claire Koç, author of the book "Claire, the first name of shame", looks back on the way in which her childhood city, and her parents, gradually turned in on themselves.
If the latter were on their arrival in France open to the tricolor culture, they ended up raising their daughter "like a Turkish".
A book to tell about an "identity coming out" and denounce a communitarian withdrawal.
Originally from Turkey, Cigdem Koç loves France.
In 2008, she therefore decided to apply for naturalization and became Claire Koç, a change that her relatives could not support.
Guest of Europe 1 on the occasion of the release of her book
Claire, the first name of shame
, the journalist tells how those around her have rejected her since she was officially French, but also how she saw her parents and his childhood neighborhood to fall back on their community.
An identity withdrawal
When Claire Koç's parents arrived in France about thirty years ago, they nevertheless wanted to integrate into French society.
"We celebrated the Epiphany without religious connotation, we adopted the codes of French culture," explains the journalist.
But gradually things will change.
"Little by little, the city in which we lived was emptied of French cultural references."
A "pressure" is then put in place, according to Claire Koç.
"The less you need to speak French, the more you withdraw into your community."
France "existed at the pharmacy and at the post office", but these places were replaced by "community shops in which there were no French products".
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"When I got home I was in Turkey"
Raised as "a Turkish woman in all aspects of [her] life", Claire Koç saw this withdrawal become even more pressing in the early 1990s with the arrival of the parable.
"Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Belmondo, the
Champs-Élysées show
presented by Michel Drucker, or even
7 out of 7
by Anne Sinclair ... All that has disappeared" to make way for Turkish programs, she recalls.
"When I went to school I was in France, but when I came home I was in Turkey. I had to leave France on the landing."
Officially French since 2008, Claire Koç still comes up against her parents' incomprehension today.
"They don't talk to me anymore," she says.
But the journalist explains that she is "very calm about it".
"I think one day they might find some appeasement, and come back to me."