Every morning, as the alarm clock shatters the fog of her restless sleep, Isild Le Besco asks herself why she decided to publish a book. Why is she laying her intimate story of violence on the shelves of bookshops across the country? Why put herself through all this, the media, the inevitable virulent reactions of those closest to her, the painful controversies. Her train of thought always leads her to the same place: She has no choice, her survival depends on it.

"Each woman who was pushed into such a horrible situation, and who has managed to recover – because some don't recover and die as a result – has a duty to speak up for others. For me, it's thanks to my children that I didn't commit suicide. I won't rest until I've reconstructed what I've managed to overcome," she said, in one of the imaginative turns of phrase she sometimes uses.

The book, Dire vrai ("Telling true"), published on May 1, might never have existed without a train journey. The one that links the southeastern Drôme department, where the 41-year-old author and filmmaker has lived since the Covid lockdown, and Paris, which she goes to fulfill her obligations. On board a TGV in April 2023, a very agitated passenger was aggressive toward the passengers. Le Besco got up and asked her to leave. The woman, in her 20s, insulted her, punched her repeatedly and stuck a finger in her eye. She came away with a damaged cornea, 24 days off work, and the need to repeat over and over on the phone to her little sister that she was "not a victim."

Her attack on the train became the opening scene of her book. It was also the beginning of a realization that the violence she suffered was not an isolated incident, but a self-reinforcing chain of events. "Prisoner of my material and emotional shortcomings, I was the perfect target for all abuse," she wrote. In the book, Le Besco traces a continuum between her childhood, her start in French cinema, the relationship between her elder sister – the actress and director Maïwenn – and the director and producer Luc Besson; how she was preyed upon by filmmaker Benoît Jacquot (at the start of their relationship Le Besco was 16, while he was 52); her relationship with the father of her children; and the fact that today she remains devastated but driven by the need to write in order to rebuild herself. Her book joins other similar accounts written in recent years by women such as Flavie Flament, Vanessa Springora, Camille Kouchner, Hélène Devynck and Judith Chemla.

She wasn't ready yet

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