I was very glad and curious when I arrived in Deauville the evening before the Women’s Forum. My fellow students looked smart and friendly, and the coming days fairly unusual.

I was amazed by the way the organizes have been able to convince a vast group of powerful people to spend some of their time at the meeting. The WF offered me the opportunity to speak with the Head of communication at McKinsey Paris, with a Partner at McKinsey NY, with Carlos Ghosn of Renault, with Maria Emilia Menezes (Exec Director of Wallace Pharma) and so many others. I learned alot from them all, and I learned even more being confronted to the many Asian and African women at the conference. I was delighted to discover how strong, dynamic and decisive women they were. Figures like South-African Vice Prime Minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka or Yolanda Conyers, VP and Chief diversity officer at Lenovo, impressed me much.

I also realized (thanks to an analysis by my co-blogger Ivonne) how strange it can be to discuss about women’s conditions globally when, in fact, in many developing countries this discussion has not even begun yet.

When I was invited to the forum’s 3rd edition, I immediately noticed an interesting place for me not to feel absolutely exotic: the men’s corner; a little dark stall where minority men who dare attend the event can freely gather together (at least that is what I thought at that time). Every women were supposed to be prohibited from that place built on a club-style basis with a giant TV screen and leather armchairs. A sort of forbidden city in which the men could compound in case of any sudden feminine attack.

After the two first days I must confess the organizers were right but on the other way around what they had imagine: men have been ferociously attacked by hordes of women that seemed to consider the little square the best in the all Deauville CID (our host resort). So much so that men began to cautiously avoid the men’s corner.

But manliness had not enunciated its last word. The battle was going to its apogee on this afternoon. The forum comprehensive program was announcing the arrival of Carlos Ghosn (CEO of Nissan & Renault), Frank Brown (Dean of INSEAD), Olivier Marchal (Bain&cie) and JP Tricorie (CEO of Schneider). Yes, in the twenty-square-meter thing. Of course the idea was to enable these well-known economic figures to meet the happy few other men in Deauville and talk between men about something like how and why women matter in business.

That’s not saying much that the she-army would fight tooth & nail to evacuate the poor guys who dare to try to attend the conference planned specifically for them.Here’s come a genius idea from an organizer: let’s change the place for the conference: a very classical feint in war period. The women would headed like a whirlwind into the men’s corner, while, we, happy and victorious would celebrate peacefully our victory in good company. The machiavelic plan worked out, only one thing mattered: discretion. (you know Guitry? If you’re man, rush to that: “Of course women can keep a secret, they only need to be several of them”).

How The James Bond stronghold was attacked

Men rushes into a first floor conference place, hidden behind a big totem that advertises the event. But there was a previous conference that was taking place there. And guess what, the men’s gathering in front of a door was noticed by passing women that was hanging around. In less than five minutes, streams of red-headed, blonde or dark, asian, indian, american, european and african women were surging toward us, perched on stiletto heels, full of rage for the attempt to elude them. We could hear from the depth of the pit the victorious rumour moving upward. Our guests were already arriving to the James Bond room and the James Bond girls were following them in an unbelievable uproar.We tried diplomacy in order not to surrender immediately.After hard peace talks we agreed on the following rule: three women should have at least one man to assail the place.

Let’s make it clear they didn’t respect the treaty as soon as they were numerous enough inside to put us down: powerful women are crual and pitiless.

As there were so few chairs for these numerous women present, they began to sit onto the fitted-carpet, leaving shoes and pushing their peers just as if in a mud battle. Indeed women wanted to eye their hero intently.The conference started in a strange way: M. Ghosn, who probably meant to be sincere, explained that diversity was compulsory in order to achieve effectiveness in companies but had to be meticulously prepared, and so that in his executive there were no women so far. Here we were and I really thought at the time we were on the verge to a nuclear war. I grabbed my bag and rushed to the door. Actually I am too young to die and I cannot bear physical torture. Thus I ran toward the door in an desperate attempt to save my life as the popular discontent voices were coming up. Were the bodyguards ready to evacuate the unlucky Nissan CEO? Never mind, every man for himself in hard times.

The diplomatic crisis was managed by Bond, James bond (his friends also call him Carlos Ghosn). My colleague Camilla, much stronger than I and determined to cover the event, has already posted her summary of the risky debate those four men dare to host. A strong historical moment. That’s how a private men’s clandestine meeting was ruin in Deauville, October 12^th 2007 by the vikings of modern times, I mean, women.

Or: A missing writer, and a young chinese MBA student standing in.

Yesterday at the afternoon tea time, the writer and journalist Irène Frain wanted to provide us with a sociological reading of Xiaolu Guo’s Village of stone (shortlisted for The Independent “Best Foreign Fiction Prize” 2005, and nominated for the Dublin International Literature Award (IMPAC) 2006).

Unfortunetely the novelist gave it a miss. A session less during the forum? Do not even think about it: for women (and all the more so as they are mighty women) do not get used to submitting to fate. So Irene Frain has a quick look outside the smart and affluent-looking “author’s corner”, she sees a dynamic chinese student having her way to the bar, and invites her to join the assembly. She pushes our perfect chinese candidate into the dark intellectual room, so far away (mentally I mean) from the bar with the petit-fours and the so sexy tiny pink champagne bottle created for us …euh I mean for the event.

The upset ambitious girl suddenly felt pushed on stage, in front of the women smilingly waiting for the renowned novelist.

That’s when it became clear to me that, even here, there was deep respect and reverence face to the artistic stuff. It rejoiced me, but there was more than that. The student did the sociological analysis thing by answering the snobbish but actually accurate questions she was being asked (and translated). She has lived both in Hong Kong and in the UK. She is now taking a MBA program at INSEAD. We learned that she considered herself as belonging definitely to the Asia area even if she confessed of feeling a foreigner when traveling now to HK and even more when attending in Beijing (clearly even less British). She talked about her cultural meeting with French people and Fontainebleau (nobody dares question whether that Fontainebleau or the INSEAD campus is at any level representative for the French spirit or reality) but it was really instructive to look at ourselves through her eyes. She quite simply make things clear about values in China vs. Western countries, and how she did not really feel at home anywhere. And above all without being the least troubled from that.

We all were eventually amazingly fond of what that little woman, however partly a Westerner, was telling us about ourselves. We did sociology, and pretty good one. We mentally went away. We talked about fundamental stuff. We talked about what really matters in such a forum: meeting the other with his or her specific experience that can be very valuable. That was an incredibly magical time to hear in that broadly superficial place an ambitious and determined young shark (sorry Bonnie, but it is a compliment) talking about how Chinese values were important to her.

Bonnie — yes, the Chinese student is one of our bloggers, Bonnie Fong — will probably tell about her experience of jumping in for the missing novelist in an upcoming post.

I felt somewhat suspicious about the theme (Sorry…) and was very interested in asking to a large number of the Women’s Forum’s participants what “trust” means to them, with a bit of irony I must confess. Who does choose to attend an event (just think about Davos) because of its theme? I can even go further: How many of the participants didn’t even know or remember the theme that is supposed to gather us for three days in Deauville? I suspected them to be numerous. Anyway I asked, I talked and on top of that I laughed with the women I met. But by the end I got flabbergasted too. These mighty women knew the theme, and what’s more they considered it of some importance. Of course they are not absolutely naive idealists: they have not traveled up to ten thousands miles to talk merely (what’s more, in Deauville) about trust. As a dynamic social entrepreneur put it: “It might seem light and genuine but trust does remain of high importance. Let’s don’t fear to go back to basics”. A partner at McKinsey makes it clear, “trust” is an “attribute”; it means “openness and transparence”. In a nutshell it means “demands”. And for so high-level and hardworking women, one can make it clear that means much.