“I am both religious and 100% businesswoman”

Charlotte de Vilmorin, aged 34, fights to promote accessibility for people with disabilities.

A quadriplegic from birth, Charlotte de Vilmorin uses a wheelchair due to a genetic neuromuscular disease. She is an entrepreneur who campaigns for better consideration of people with disabilities in public policy. In March 2024, she published a book with Grasset entitled This is my body.

Franceinfo: You made yourself known by publishing a book full of humor in 2015 entitled NOTDon’t tell my mother that I’m disabled, she thinks I’m a trapeze artist in a circus. Why did you write this book?

Charlotte de Vilmorin: After my rebellious adolescence, and a lot of rejection of everything, I needed to write to externalize the discomfort of my birth disability.

Also in 2015, you became a business manager. Can you then tell us about this adventure?

I created Weeliz in 2015 just after a friend’s wedding in the south.I had so many transportation problems to attend with my wheelchair! I then decided to set up a car rental site adapted for people in wheelchairs. This story ended for me when the Association of Paralyzed People of France, APF France Handicap, bought Weeliz in 2020.

At the beginning of 2016, the European Commission awarded you the prize for the best social innovation project in Europe

I am proud to have received this award at 26 years old. I was the only woman among the winners and the youngest! In the social and solidarity economy, there are more women than in other areas. But these projects must be financed and in finance in general, there are more men than women because we trust men more than women.

Building on this first success, you take on a new challenge. That’s it ?

Yes, but my next creation, within the Newav company, is still top secret! She still fits in the field transport for people with reduced mobility. In less than a year, I managed to convince industrialists and manufacturers in the automotive world. JI experienced being the only woman in this male world of automobiles. And I found my place there, despite my disability, as an expert: I know what the needs of a person with a disability are, I am legitimate.

In your second book, This is my bodyyou say that three years ago, your disability worsened with the loss of your independence to eat

One evening, with friends, my right arm was paralyzed on my armrest. Impossible to bring it up to my mouth… Che day I knew that I was going to be totally dependent on others to do something that I had always known how to do like everyone else. Today, I have a robotic arm that helps me eat.

After the humiliation you must have felt, the anger, you explain that you discovered a liberation

Indeed, my disability, in my journey of faith, gave me access to a privileged space: I could offer something to others, I could give them something. In my book, moreover, I use the words of a priest: “your disability allows us to love you because it allows us to give to you”. In other words, he puts others in a concrete situation to serve. This greatly transforms my relationship with others. This transforms my faith a lot. I changed my outlook on everything, I got rid of prejudices. I really like freedom of thought!

You have even completely changed your life…

I decided to give my life to God. I entered the oldest religious order: the Consecrated Virgins. We are religious at the service of the poorest, the most fragile. But we do not live in a community, we remain independent, autonomous, like emancipated women who take responsibility for themselves.

How would you define yourself today?

I am both religious and 100% businesswoman, without being dependent on a man or a group. And then there is India, I am nothing without India, my assistance dog! I have had a strong, non-verbal relationship with this dog for nine years.