Michèle Perrein

Michèle Perrein (30 October 1929 – 13 February 2010) was a French journalist and writer. She was the recipient of the Prix Interallié in 1984.

Michèle Perrein, whose real surname was Barbe, was born in Gironde and studied at the Collège de La Réole, followed by two years at the Faculty of Law in Bordeaux. After she moved to Paris, she worked as a secretary by sending cars to South America while attending in parallel evening courses at the Centre de formation des journalistes.

Hélène Lazareff, director of the magazine Elle, found that her surname "Barbe" was difficult to wear, and thus she decided to take her mother's name "Perrein". Her work as a journalist led her to follow several trials, some of which she published articles about in Elle (Minou Drouet affair 1955) where she questioned the authenticity of Minou Drouet's works, or Paris Match (Patrick Henry affair).