Sonia Rolland has come a long way since being crowned Miss France in 2000. The former beauty queen has since tried her hand at acting, explored directing and production. Today she remains very active and recently granted an interview to David Barbet on YouTube, where she shares vivid memories of her teenage years in Burgundy. After arriving from Rwanda, the mother of Tess and Kahina confronted a radical social shift and frequent discrimination.
From School Fights to Channeling Energy Through Sports
Having settled in the region at fourteen, Sonia Rolland found herself in a world where her family was the only Black family. A situation that bred tensions.
« A somewhat tense and not very happy adolescence. I was leaving Rwanda, Burundi and my friends. I arrived in Burgundy, people didn’t know where we came from, we were the only Black family and there were a lot of questions about my mixed heritage, a lot of stereotypes. I was 14-15 years old, right in the middle of hormones. It was a period when I fought a lot at school. I faced racism every day and I experienced things that were truly unfair, including the social upheaval because we lost everything during exile. When we arrived in France, we landed in a working-class milieu and we didn’t know much about the codes of this new world.»
To break this cycle, her mother played a crucial role. She urged her to channel her aggression into a team sport, turning energy into something constructive.
« I was a hyperactive child and, since I tended to fight a bit because I didn’t know how to defend myself verbally, my mother told me, ‘Your outlet is basketball, and you’ll figure it out with that.’ I calmed down over time and, above all, I learned to speak and to dialogue with people. »
An Unexpected Support
The story took a surprising turn at the moment of her selection for beauty contests. “What was very beautiful in my story is that the same people who had welcomed us somewhat tepidly at first are the ones who truly pushed me to believe in myself as the future Miss Bourgogne, and Miss France. They even contributed financially to my Miss France departure to give me a little envelope“, she revealed. Tender confidences that did not fail to move the listeners.
