Entrepreneurs, spouse, temporary or established: this section paints the portraits of expatriates in New York.
Today, Marie-Monique Streckel: working well after 65.
“Something happened in July 1999. I turned 60 and I was retired. I was then the President of France Telecom US.
The company had the same policy for everyone: at 60, you had to leave. The cleaver. Overnight, I lost my status, my place. I was kicked out. You had to leave the company and become a retiree.
“Becoming retired”. That’s an idea that didn’t even cross my mind. It was simply one job stopping and another starting.
I wanted to stay in Telecom and had started discussions two years earlier with the team of Ronald Lauder, one of the sons of Estee Lauder, businessman and great art collector in New York, which I finally joined. the team as Senior Advisor. I advised him on his various investments in Eastern Europe.
During these five years, I completely lost my link with France. We never stopped there. Ronald Lauder speaks French. He has an apartment in Paris, but has made no investment there.
I have lived in the United States since 1964. My husband is American. But I never felt American. I waited for Barrack Obama’s presidency to apply for citizenship. So when I was asked to take over the management of the French Institute of Alliance Française, I did not hesitate for a second.
As is customary here, the board gave me several interviews and I became, at the age of 65, the President of the famous Institution. But age has nothing to do. I could have exercised my mission twenty years earlier. I wanted, and I still want moreover, to embrace everything with the same energy as when I was thirty. Dishes do not iron. You have to grab them on the fly.
And that’s what’s great about New York: no one ever asks you how old you are, but your address. This is the most important thing. Who says how much you earn, what is your social status. But age? Everyone cares! Moreover, it is forbidden to ask for it during a job interview. It is discriminatory. No. We are talking about appetite. Of appetite for life. Willingness to contribute. To be in the flow of the world. Staying on the edge of the river and watching your life go by is not part of my philosophy. I always wanted everything.
For example, I have just taken on a new mission, after my eighteen years of promoting fi:af. I am working on the renovation and reopening of the Pagoda which was bought by an American real estate developer, passionate about cinema and always full of projects. Do you know this cinema in Paris, in the 7th? The opportunities keep coming.
It’s much more complicated in France. This explains why many people, who have had brilliant careers, continue them, well after 65 years, in the United States.
In France, a woman often becomes a grandmother. It’s a status, almost a job! But in the US, in this big country where little children are thousands of miles away, where there aren’t two weeks of vacation every two months, it’s not so easy. So the women who have fought so hard to reach positions of high responsibility do not want to walk away. They continue.
I’m almost 84 and still have the same energy. But I don’t put it in the same places. I prioritize, make choices. Perhaps less in social representation. I try to live with more integrity. Which does not prevent me from experimenting. I still participated in my first Burning Man * not so long ago.”
**Burning Man is a major arts gathering, held annually in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada for nine days.
