Over the years, Léa Salamé has become one of the emblematic faces of the PAF. In parallel with television, the companion of Raphaël Glucksmann is also illustrated on the waves of “France Inter”. At 43, the main interested party knows how to combine career and private life perfectly. “I’ve been sleeping between five and six hours a night for seven years. I’m not Emmanuel Macron. I need more hours of sleep […]”, joked the ex-acolyte of Laurent Ruquier for “Puremédias” in February 2023.
And to add: “I have to take care of my children. […]. Since my son was born, I never have breakfast with him and never take him to school. I catch up in the evening. I am the one who takes care of the dinner, the bath and the bedtime”. For the animator, the family is sacred. In the podcast Small Talk of “Konbini” broadcast this Wednesday, April 19, 2023, Léa Salamé bounced back from countless childhood memories.
Obviously, Gabriel’s mother made her parents see all the colors. “My parents were summoned every two months, they were told: ‘She said again…’, ‘she talks in class’, ‘she talks bullshit’, ‘she quits’…“, remembered Léa Salamé. And to specify without filter: “I really made my parents experience horror […] They freaked out with me, my parents. I waited for them to sleep and I fled through the service door to go party… I did the worst horrors”.
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“I took a long time to accept my difference…”
During this interview, Léa Salamé also spoke about the history of her family: “My first name is a Lebanese name because I was born in Beirut and I arrived in France when I was five years old because there was a civil war in Lebanon. And so originally, my first name was Hala”. Unfortunately in her schooling, the latter suffered countless bullying.
“Hala in French, we don’t pronounce the h and when I arrived at school in Paris, it was a pain at home”, clarified the young woman before emphasizing that the first name “Haha” means “Welcome”. “On told me ‘Allah Akbar, your parents called you God’. It bothered me a lot. As a teenager, Léa Salamé then made a radical choice to have peace: “I asked my mother to enroll Léa Hala in school and not the other way around”.
Delicate decision that she has long hidden from her father Ghassan Salamé, former Minister of Culture in Lebanon and famous political scientist: “I was afraid that he would say that I did not assume my origin and my Arabness. And basically, I didn’t assume it at that age. He was right”. At the time, Léa Salamé wanted to blend in with the crowd, even if it meant erasing her roots: “I wanted to have a mother from Creuse and a father from Brittany. I also wanted to have blue eyes even though my parents spoke with an accent. I took time to accept my difference which was going to be my strength”.
NB