Think French icons, and the glacial, glamorous, and supremely sexy Catherine Deneuve, Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin spring to mind. And one of them isn’t even French.
But films like Girlhood by Céline Sciama in 2014 and last year’s Divines by Houda Benjamin have shown a different side of France (shot in the banlieues rather than on the boulevards). They’ve also revealed another kind of French woman: strong, beautiful, proud of her African heritage, and totally active on social media.
So here’s to the new wave of French starlets appearing on screens and runways. Scroll down for some of the women you should be talking about.
18-year-old Sonia Ben Ammar is a model, singer and actress. She walked in the Dolce & Gabbana Alta Moda show last month alongside Sofia Richie.
She’s also rumoured to be rekindling her romance with Brooklyn Beckham – who she dated for five months in 2015 – as she was recently photographed out and about with Brooklyn and his mother (!) in Paris .
She’s friends with Luka Sabbat and even manager to out-glamour Selena Gomez at the Louis Vuitton show last year.
Her mother is the actress Beata Ben Ammar and her father is Tunisian producer and director Tarak Ben Ammar, who distributed Mel Gibson’s mega flop The Passion of Christ and was apparently friends with Michael Jackson.
Scroll through her IG account if: you want a glimpse into the coolest fashion parties in Paris and Los Angeles.
You may recognise this French-Moroccan rising star from Divines, the French coming-of-age film that was touted as a female version of La Haine.
She plays Dounia, a young woman who lives in the outskirts in Paris, and the film follows her daily life at school and her attempts to get into drug dealing.
The 20-year-old actress is actually the young sister of the director of the film Houda Benjamin.
Scroll through her IG account if: you want to see her fooling around with the girls from Divines.
Star of the stunning film Girlhood, Karidja Touré is set to appear in an upcoming film starring French icon Catherine Deneuve.
You’ll also be able to see her in The Adventures of Selika, a short film about Selika Lazevski, a 19th century horse rider. She rode in French circuses and hippodromes.
Both of her parents are from the Ivory Coast and she is a practising Muslim. You’ll notice that she doesn’t show much flesh but always looks on fleek.
Scroll through her IG account if: you want to know what acting projects the bright young star is up to next.
French, Spanish and Senegalese Iman Perez is the daughter of Karine Silla, the Senegalese model (who also has children with Gérard Depardieu).
Iman is signed to the agency Next Models, is a muse for Jean Paul Gaultier and is a Chloé girl (she gets free clothes and a front row seat at the French fashion house).
She has also acted in Un Baiser Papillion, which was directed by her mother.
Scroll through her IG account if: you like beautiful horses and cascading curls.