For as long as I could remember, I’d been Thelma the pseudo-rebel, fighting against everything for the sake of it. I wasn’t named after Thelma in the 1990s film Thelma and Louise – I’m much too old for that. I was born in 1977, when Thelma Houston was topping the charts with the mega international hit ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’, which my mother, Odette, was crazy about. These days, of course, when I tell people my name, they always think of the film with Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis. When Ridley Scott’s film was released, it blew me away. A star-struck teenager, I identified with the story of those two strong and sexy women. They became my role models, a sort of feminine ideal. I’d never believed in God, and I saw the film as a sign from destiny: now my name was associated with a symbol that was much more meaningful than an old forty-five-r.p.m. record. I know the film ends in tragedy, but the impact it had on me was positive. Thelma and Louise are symbols of women’s freedom of choice, of women who owe men nothing, have no expectations of them and get by on their own.

When I fell pregnant, I decided to keep the baby, knowing that I would raise it without a father. I hoped to have a girl and call her Louise. But Louise turned out to be a boy. That’s the way it is, and I’m very glad. Louis is the only male who matters to me.

My mother brought me up alone too. Odette is a product of May ’68, who’s always campaigned to do as she pleases with her body, for her freedom of thought, and I admired her for that. I grew up with the idealized memory of an absent father, who’d died during a demonstration against the destruction of the steel industry. I wasn’t yet a year old, and the figure of that untouchable, irreplaceable father swept away all hope of a family life. My mother continued his work as a union activist, and, as far back as I can remember, I’ve always seen her involved in the struggle. She left no door open in her life for a man. She drowned her grief in her battles, and her day-to-day work as a primary-school teacher and activist in an education priority zone. Success for all, darling. I was full of admiration for her! I spent so much time marching in the streets with her! I remember the May Day parades – first of all on her shoulders, a few years later holding one end of a banner, then my own flag. I was proud of her, proud of myself, proud to honour my father’s memory.