She was, during the World War II, a volunteer nurse, first in a French Foreign Legion unit, the 11th infantry regiment abroad. She was wounded at Verdun in rescuing a legionnaire.
Then she joined the Resistance, as a nurse.After landing in Provence, she was then attached to the 5th Armored Division, where she performed as a nurse but also as a divisional social assistant. It was under her tutelage the 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment (1er REC) and Mechanized Regiment of the Foreign Legion (RMLE).
Decorated with the Croix de Guerre, she was made Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur in 1945, and received the distinction of « vivandière d'honneur » by the RMLE at the hands of Colonel Gaultier, corps commander.
She the staff of a newspaper being created, a women's weekly: Elle, where she spent two years.From 1950, she worked in the French edition of Vogue, where she quickly became editor, and remained for 16 years.
Reading Vogue democratized luxury while giving access to the most innovative artists of the time, whether writers as Francois-Regis Bastide, Violette Leduc and Francois Nourissier or photographers like Guy Bourdin, Henry Clarke or William Klein, or designers Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent and Emanuel Ungaro. By combining ready-to-wear and Pop Art, she connected fashion with any other form of creativity. She left Vogue in 1966, in a breath of scandal for wanting to place a black woman on the cover of the magazine.
Three months later, in 1966, she wrote Oublier Palerme and obtained the Prix Goncourt.This novel was made into a film in 1989 by Francesco Rosi (in Italian, Dimenticare Palermo).She met Defferre the same year and married in 1973.
She is also known for publishing her photo stories on the lives of Defferre (L'Homme de Marseille 2001), or that of Coco Chanel (Chanel Time in 2004).She wrote the books of several of Roland Petit ballets including Le Guépard and Nana.She became a member of the Académie Goncourt in 1983, she became president in 2002.In 2008, she was part of the Commission headed by Hugues Gall and charged by Christine Albanel, Minister of Culture, with the post of Director of the French Academy in Rome, Villa Medici.
In April 2010, she was awarded by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, with the knighthood of Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur .
