“Marine Tondelier, Joan of Arc ecologist… less courage, more ridicule”

Ophélie Roque is a French teacher in the Paris suburbs. She published Black Mesa (Robert Laffont, 2023), his first novel.

It's a tick! an ixod! a mite! There are not even enough branches in the classification invented by Carl von Linné in the 18th century.^e century to know where to classify such a species. Five times (at least!) that she has done the trick and promises us – through the sweet vibration of the waves or through the shimmering image of a television – that, this time, it's the one! She refuses to support for another moment the odious dictatorial and despotic system that X has become. In short, she is leaving! So we, poor wretches cradled in hope, end up hoping a little and believing in it. What do you want, we must recognize our naivety because, like the mite which survives by feeding on the blood of its victim, Marine Tondelier has decided: she remains and will remain on X. Too bad if she takes the risk of taunting the very…