Maryse Burgot is one of the best-known and recognized journalists in France. But nothing predestined this daughter of Breton farmers to travel the world at the risk of her life. Originally from Bazouges-la-Pérouse, in northern Ille-et-Vilaine, she has covered the major conflicts of recent decades, from the Balkans to Ukraine, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and the Israeli conflict. -Palestinian. Hostage in Jolo for seven weeksMaryse Burgot was also a correspondent for France Télévisions in London, then Washington, to reconcile her family and professional aspirations. In “Far from home, great reporter and daughter of peasants”, she talks about all this, her life as a reporter, as a mother and as a Breton “born in a modest environment”but who exercises “the most beautiful profession”.
Often sent to war zones, decked out in a bulletproof vest and a helmet, “sometimes a ridiculous outfit given my six foot height”Maryse Burgot first presents herself as a daughter of Breton farmers, escaped from her social environment. In Bazouges-la-Pérouse, “in my native village, we don’t grow up imagining ourselves as a journalist and a major reporter in a Parisian editorial office”. If she wants to be an example, it is to shake up a certain social determinism, to tell the youngest that “anything is possible”. Even if his journey “made my dear parents and mine proud”she admits to sometimes feeling a “feeling of imposture linked to my place of birth”, “characteristic of those who did not grow up in a privileged environment”.
To arrive at this job as a senior reporter at France Télévisions, Maryse Burgot first left the Country of Combourg pour Renneswhere she studies modern literature rather than political science. But “in my agricultural environment, no one knew, or was able, to advise me”. At the same time, she is a supervisor in a vocational high school in Saint-Brieucto finance his studies.
But there is still this buried dream of becoming a journalistborn in front of the pages of Ouest-France, to which “my parents are subscribers”. So she works on the news, devours the press, books and prepares for journalism school competitions. She passed the Strasbourg School exam and borrowed the money needed to study for two years in Alsace without working. She will be a journalist, a profession “passion” that she admits to loving “excessively”.
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Reporter, Maryse Burgot is also the mother of two children. She tried to lead two lives that everything seems to oppose, “a professional existence in conflict zones and a family life with children, young and old”. “Being a major reporter is the chance of my life, after the even more extraordinary one of being able to start a family and have children”.
Elle will come and present his book and sign it on November 15 and 16, in Combourg and Bazouges-la-Pérouse.
