Sea Shepherd France President Returns to Hometown for Ocean Conservation Talk

Lamya gave a talk in the wedding hall of Gennevilliers, the city where she grew up in the 1980s and 1990s. "I lived in the Cité Rouge. We lived in the tallest tower, the 18-story one..." she confides to Le Parisien. "For me, Gennevilliers was France, I didn’t move around much. I only left to go to my family in Morocco in the summer, or to the city’s holiday camp in Granville," she adds. Lamya’s parents divorced when she was a child. She attended primary school in Les Grésillons, before going to Édouard-Vailland middle school and then Galilée high school. "I have both good and bad memories of that time. There was more concrete, more drugs too. The Cité Rouge was a hotspot for trafficking. It was tough, very tough," she continues.

Now 46 years old, Lamya had to develop a strong character to protect herself as a teenager in this neighborhood she describes as "gloomy". "My father had left and I didn’t have an older brother to protect me. All of this shaped my character, I grew up the hard way," she asserts. Despite being brilliant at school, she was called a "teacher’s pet" or "brown-noser". "Between getting good grades or having friends, I chose friends. My grades logically dropped," Lamya details. Subsequently, she discovers her passion for nature and animals in particular. While in 7th grade, she signs a petition against the mistreatment of donkeys in Spain during traditional festivals. Thus began her fight for the preservation of the environment and living beings.

During her conference at Gennevilliers city hall, she recognizes one of her former schoolteachers. "I was her 3rd-grade teacher and I remember her well. She was brilliant, already hyper-determined and in love with animals. She took care of every injured pigeon," Martine testifies. And Lamya adds: "As a child, I was the resident Brigitte Bardot". After her ES baccalaureate and a brief experience in the advertising world in the United States, followed by a few odd jobs in France, she decides to continue her studies. The one who wanted to "work with animals and nature" thus obtains her Master’s degree in Environmental Sciences at the University of Orsay (Essonne) in 2000, the year she definitively leaves Gennevilliers.

In January 2005, she crosses paths with Paul Watson during a conference he gave in Paris. With the founder of Sea Shepherd, Lamya finds her calling. "He put into words what I had always felt, he matches actions to words. His philosophy puts life at the center of everything. With him, we’re in action, we’re beyond signing petitions at the metro exit," she explains. A year later, she creates Sea Shepherd France, of which she becomes president in 2008. After Watson’s dismissal by the board of Sea Shepherd Global in 2022, Lamya and a few others decide to follow him. It is this edifying journey that the Moroccan presented on Tuesday to a captivated audience.