Flight Engineer-2 of the Soyuz-TM-33 vehicle,
ESA astronaut, France.

The first French woman in space.

DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH:
May 13, 1957, Le Creusot, France.

EDUCATION:
In 1980 she graduated from the medical department at the University of Dijon. She specialized at rheumatology at the medical department at the University of Paris. She is Doctor of Medicine (1981), she defended Doctor's thesis on neurology in 1992.

MARITAL STATUS:
married, a daughter born in 1998.
Husband - CNES astronaut (now ESA astronaut) Jean-Pierre Haignere.
 

AWARDS AND RANKS:
Has been awarded with Order of Spirit, Friendship, French Order for Merits and other awards. She is a Cavalier of the Honorary Legion Order (France).

HOBBY: modern art (painting, sculpture), reading, sports (gymnastics, golf).

WORK EXPERIENCE:
She had worked at a polyclinic and a hospital at the outskirts of Paris up to 1984. In 1984-85 - rheumatologist at Cochin Hospital in Paris.
Since 1985 she has been a member of CNES astronauts team.
During six years she was carrying on scientific activities at the neurophysiological laboratory of National Scientific Research Center at Paris. She took part in preparation of the scientific experiments Fisali and Viminal which are part of Soviet-French program Aragats in 1988 when representative from France Jean-Loup Cretien was working onboard the Mir station.
From 1989 - 1992 she was in charge for programs on physiology and space medicine in the department of life support system at CNES in Paris.
In 1989-1992 she supported scientific coordination of Russian-French expedition Antares in the part of life support during training and flight of Michel Tognini.
In October 1992 she went through the contest and became a candidate for flight to the Mir station on the Altair program. She was trained in the Gagarin cosmonaut training center. In July of 1993 she was backup of Jean-Pierre Haignere on this program and monitored implementation of biomedical experiments from the MCC at Moscow Area.