At the Regain Center in Sainte-Tulle, in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, around ten women participated, on June 6 and 7, 2026, in a course not quite like the others. Here, self-defense combines with well-being, mental health, sisterhood and personal development.
At the origin of this project, Marie-Alice Dévoile, founder of the Femmes en Défense association, engaged since 2010 in the fight against violence against women. “Very early on, I became aware of the female condition, the violence, the discrimination. I think that when you are a woman, you can hardly get through it“, she confides.
Her commitment began within Solidarité Femmes 13, where she is still an administrator. But it was his discovery of self-defense that marked a turning point. “I always wanted to get into self-defense. It took me a while before going there because there too there are clichés, discrimination and stereotypes. Then one day, I walked through the door of a club.“
Need for internal security
Quickly, she understood that the discipline goes far beyond the simple learning of physical techniques. “I saw it as a tool at the crossroads of several paths:…
