Alumni Stories: Claire Alet '96

While attending Bush from 1996-1997 as an exchange student from France, Claire set her sights on earning a degree in Development Studies from the University of Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne. After graduating and returning to her home country, she was accepted into the prestigious institution Sciences-Po Bordeaux, a political studies institute affiliated with the University of Bordeaux in Bordeaux, France, and continued to foster her love of writing and learning.

Claire became a successful journalist and author, publishing several articles, a novel, and a comic book adaptation. Since then, she’s continued to blaze trails at various magazines, including Alternatives économiques and Le 1 Hebdo.

“The very first articles that I wrote were at The Bush School, in the school magazine called The Rambler,” Claire said. “And when I came to campus a couple of months ago, Tiffany found the articles that I’ve published a very long time ago, like in 1995 and 1996. It was a very moving experience for me to read back these articles that I wrote when I was like, eighteen.” 

Claire reminisced about her year at an American school, which differed greatly from her experiences attending French schools. She emphasized the importance of understanding other cultures and how being exposed to them better prepared her for the real world.

“There were classes about music and movies, art and history, or creative writing,” Claire shared. “They drove me to places that were not explored in French high school, because in French high schools, it’s very academically-driven, with mostly French, Math, and Economics. Of course, it’s all useful, but it doesn’t open your mind in quite the same way. I would say that my time at Bush was an experience of open-mindedness.”

Today, Claire writes expertly on topics such as economics, social issues, and feminism. 

“How my experience at Bush helps me as a French journalist nowadays is that I am much more interested and concerned about what’s happening in the U.S. right now,” Claire said. “I’ve conducted more interviews with English-speaking people, such as an American economist named Joseph Stieglitz, who won a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, and the famous feminist Gloria Steinem.”

Claire published a graphic novel in 2022, Capital & Ideology: A Graphic Novel, which has been published in thirteen languages, including English, by the American publishing house Abrams ComicArts. It is an adaptation of the essay of the famous French economist Thomas Piketty. Capital & Ideology: a graphic novel has been nominated for the Eisner Awards in May 2025. Her essay  Matrice: Aux Origines de la Domination Masculine (Matrix: The Origins of Male Domination) provides insightful analyses of the origins of patriarchy and gender issues. She is currently looking for a publishing house for an English translation. And she continues to invite perspectives around these imperative topics through her passionate writing.

Last summer, as she visited her American family, the Palmasons, who hosted her for a school year in 1995 and 1996, she toured the new and improved spaces, including Gracemont Alumni Hall and Upper School South, with her ‘American sister’ Jennifer Kaiton '97. 

“When I returned for the first time this summer to Bush after thirty years, I was amazed by how much the campus had grown with these two new, beautiful buildings,” Claire said. “I was reminded of the courses I took, specifically Creative Writing and U.S. History, and how much they inspired me. The Bush School has grown, but the spirit of ‘learning by experiencing’ is still very much the same.”