Paris (AFP)

Joana Balavoine has a name that speaks to a lot, but we don't know her.

And she takes the risk of telling, by delivering the most intimate details, her battle against drugs.

It's in comics, in "The Sleeping Lions" (Bamboo Editions, released on September 1), with Sylvie Gaillard in the screenplay and Fanny Montgermont in the drawing.

The line is soft, the colors pastel, but the story very hard: that of the infernal circle of cocaine addiction experienced by the young woman, now 35 years old.

"I'm doing drugs, Sophie. My body is full of drugs," admits the protagonist.

The inability to live a structured daily life, damage to health and self-image, anxiety attacks ... Joana Balavoine, who did not know her father, killed in a helicopter accident for five months before his birth, did not want to hide anything.

"We said to ourselves that it would be interesting to tell the ugly side of drugs, by mixing a sincere story, my intimacy," the singer told AFP.

"As I was lucky enough to get out of it, it became, I wouldn't say a necessity, but a duty, to bear witness. To give a little hope".

The journey of this "daughter of" is not that of everyone.

The money coming from his father's records and the doors that open thanks to his surname will mean that readers will not necessarily recognize themselves.

- Absent and omnipresent -

But in the difficulty of finding their rightful place, sentimental instability and the good and bad surprises that one can have with those close to them, they can see a part of themselves.

"If only in a detail a person can say to himself: I am a bit like that ... Maybe that will pull him (...) The idea of ​​this comic and its message, it is is an invitation to look at yourself. And if you do not look at the smallest detail, you are not sure of getting out, "says Joana Balavoine.

Joana Balavoine during a photo shoot in Paris, September 1, 2021 JOEL SAGET AFP

Introspection, for her, has meant making peace with the absence of a father ... omnipresent in her life, as the people she meets talk about him.

"You hear so much. I ended up not listening."

Daniel Balavoine only appears very fleetingly in "The Sleeping Lions".

According to his daughter, "it is very very particular to find yourself, to be able to grow up, without having his presence. And at the same time he is there, and at the same time you have to share him with everyone", explains the daughter of the interpreter of "Save love".

“At different times, I listened to different songs. And I believe that what is strongest, what constantly touches me, is: + To love is stronger than to be loved. + to do something, to love someone, to love their job ".

Joana Balavoine is now working on her singing career, in a duet with another performer, Seemone.

“Free,” she says, after years of drug addiction.

© 2021 AFP