She was a pioneer among pioneers. She was one of the people who fought so hard to ensure that women had access to the same titles and jobs as men, even in the most exclusive units. Valérie André was a helicopter pilot under machine-gun fire during the Indochina war, a military doctor parachuted in among the men, and a war surgeon when wounded people overwhelmed hospitals. She went on to become captain, lieutenant-colonel, colonel and, in 1976, general − the first woman in France to achieve each of these milestones. Born on April 21, 1922 in Strasbourg, decorated with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, André, "Madame le Général," died on January 21, aged 102.

"Did you achieve your dreams?" she was asked in March 2021, in the library of the Hôpital Suisse de Paris retirement home in Issy-les-Moulineaux. With smiling eyes, she replied: "Yes!" Fascinated by aviators, she had longed to take to the skies since the age of 10. A seminal memory: She recalled going to take a bouquet of flowers to aviator Maryse Hilsz, who had just landed on the runway of a Strasbourg airfield. "I always wanted to fly."

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