Tears of joy as Mélanie reads the weather on TV
There were a few moist eyes being dabbed around France last night when Mélanie Ségard, who has Down’s Syndrome, realised her dream and read the weather on live TV.
For a very emotional 20.00 news programme, the cameras followed the 21-year-old over three days as she went through make-up and rehearsals and tried to work out how to point to the correct parts of the country when there was no picture behind her.
Helped by regular France 2 weather presenters Nathalie Rihouet, Chloé Nabedian and Anaïs Baydemir she prepared to read the forecast for the coming weekend and after being a bit hesitant settled in and revealed it would be cloudy and wet in the north and sunny and dry in the south.
She said afterwards she was “very happy” despite being “a little bit stressed” as she prepared.
After the show she was congratulated by the crew taking part and by France 2 president Delphine Arnotte.
Mélanie had appealed for help to publicise Down’s Syndrome research on social media saying on Facebook that if she could get 100,000 likes she could present the weather – and within a few days double that number signed up.
She had been helped by disabled group Unapei who said that she was a “natural and spontaneous” women “who breathes joy” and was a great way to show Down’s Syndrome in a positive way.
Her appearance, seen below with evening presenter Anaïs Beydemer, comes a week before World Down Syndrome Day on March 21.
