Leaving it all for Valencia: Deborah's gamble

Déborah arrived in Valencia five years ago with a single certainty: that she wanted to start over somewhere else. She is one of those people who have experienced almost everything that French families settling here go through.

In television since 2009, she first worked as a journalist on public and private channels, alongside Jean-Luc Delarue, Sophie Davant and Frédéric Lopez, on human-interest shows where closeness and empathy mattered as much as journalistic rigour, before quickly moving into other roles: editor-in-chief, then editorial director. The daily pressure of ratings, managing teams, the adrenaline of live TV... she also produced music and society documentaries. A profession that taught her to listen, to check her facts, and to track down the right information before sharing it.

Once in Valencia, it was her own questions and her own obstacles that she had to learn to solve.

She remembers the first weeks struggling to find a home, the early days in an unfamiliar healthcare system, with no bearings and no doctor she could trust. She also remembers those questions that seem trivial and become a headache once you are there: which brands of baby formula or nappies to choose, who to ask for advice when you don't know anyone.

She remembers the stress of looking for work in a country where everything has to be rebuilt: network, reputation. And then there were the Kafkaesque twists of the Spanish administration: NIE, empadronamiento, forms in triplicate, appointments impossible to get, doors closed with no explanation.

She asked herself all the questions that expats face when they decide to put down roots: French, bilingual or Spanish school for the children? Buy a flat or keep renting? How, as an adult, do you build a new circle of friends?

Over the months, a little like in Klapisch's L'Auberge espagnole, a collection of first names gradually emerged. Agnès, Johan, the Marias, Merce, Patricia, Mar, Baptiste, Nico, Camilo, Jérôme, Llorenç, Elvira, Hugo, Marjorie, Matthias, Daria... names that became familiar, a close-knit group that took shape and became her second family.

All those difficulties, Valencia made up for a hundredfold. The slower pace here, that closeness between people, the solidarity that naturally builds between expats far from home. The sea, always there to catch your breath when everything piles up. The habits picked up at the local café, always warm. And the children playing in the street late into the evening, the fervour of the football stadiums buzzing on Sundays, which became, without her even realising it, a real part of her life here.

The Daily Valencia is in fact a story that began even before she arrived. In 2021, from Paris, pregnant with her second child and already planning to move to Valencia, Déborah had launched a first version of the outlet: a series of remote interviews with the city's entrepreneurs, like a thread reaching towards the new life she was preparing. Then the move and the children took over, and the project stayed on hold.

Today, The Daily Valencia is that same intact desire resurfacing: to give a voice and a face to the people we cross paths with without ever really knowing them, to bring their stories, their flaws and their victories to life.

A vision built on closeness, a love of portraits and true stories, of the connections you create between people, of those little everyday tips expats pass on to one another, and of cultural discovery.

Today, Déborah wouldn't move back to France for anything in the world. It is this dual experience, that of the journalist and that of the expat, that she puts at the service of Valencia's French community through The Daily Valencia, of which she is the founder and editorial director.

And you, what's your Valencia story? Write to us: this Portraits section is yours.

The Daily Valencia editorial team