- RFI/MUSIQUE: So Zazie do you feel your Asian tour has been a success?
- ZAZIE: Well, it's been much more than that for me. It's been a great first experience which has made me really eager to do this kind of thing again. I'd also say touring Asia is a necessary form of therapy for anyone who has a tendency to get wrapped up in their own little problems. When you see the conditions people are living in in other parts of the world it really brings you down to earth with a bump! I mean, when you see child prostitutes working the streets in Phnom Penh it's obvious they don't have much time to sit around soul-searching. In fact, I think the greatest satisfaction for me on a tour like this has been to bring a bit of enjoyment to kids who don't have many other pleasures in life.

- RFI/MUSIQUE: What would you say the highlights of this tour have been for you?
- ZAZIE : It's difficult to make some kind of personal "best of" list because the word Asia covers so many different countries. But I think I'd have to say I was really touched by the Burmese. Of all the people I've met (on this tour), the Burmese are the ones who are the most deprived of a window on the world. And then they have such great expectations from you that you really feel you can't let them down. The concert in Yangon was a really magical experience even though we organised it under some pretty tough conditions. But then everyone was so eager to please, really falling over themselves to help that everything that's considered essential back home - satisfying the technical requirements of singer and musicians and so on - just becomes secondary. I remember a few minutes before the Yangon concert kicked off we realised the projectors were actually standing in the middle of the audience without safety barriers. There was obviously a big risk the projectors would be knocked over during the show and they could easily have burnt people. Anyway, we pointed this out, very politely, to the organisers and the next minute everyone was rushing around cutting down bamboo trees. Then someone got out a pot of white paint - which is a real luxury here! - and started putting up all these neat little safety barriers around the projectors. They certainly did the job - although, it must be said, one or two people in the audience probably got a few white lines on their shirts!

- RFI/MUSIQUE: Your tour happened to fall bang in the middle of "Francophone Week" which meant you came across as a bit of an ambassadress for French culture. Did that bother you at all?
- ZAZIE : Yes and no. I feel that I represent myself and nobody else, and I don't particularly like to feel that I'm on some special mission. Besides, I'm not nationalistic in any way. I don't mind going for dinner with ambassadors though - they're often really interesting people. But I do sometimes have a problem when it comes to feeling solidarity with my compatriots abroad. In Vietnam, for instance, I was staggered to see what French people thought and the way they behaved. Most of them reject so much about the country that you wonder why they go on living there. The way they live their lives is like total apartheid. You do get the feeling that Vietnam hasn't really opened up the way people though it would, and that living there is a lot more difficult than just passing through like I did. But after having beaten off the French and the Americans how can we criticise the Vietnamese for rejecting new attempts at colonisation? They're not exactly welcoming us with open arms and that really annoys 'investors'. But you just have to visit the war museum in Saigon to understand that old wounds haven't healed. I mean, when you actually see what effect the napalm and fragmentation bombs had on young children's bodies …

- RFI/MUSIQUE: It was obvious everywhere you went on this tour that you really wanted to have direct contact with people. In fact, when you sang "Sucré Salé" here you even got down from the stage and mingled with the crowd. And yet you've never done anything like this in France …
ZAZIE : It's true that behaving like that came to me quite naturally here, whereas in France people would think you're acting like some kind of demagogue. Let's not forget that there's often a language barrier here which is why I had to make the show as interactive as possible. You've seen how easy it is to get the audience to sing along with you here? Well, back home that would also be seen as some kind of control thing. But here it's a way of increasing communication with the audience. That's why I also decided to cover two disco classics by Donna Summer and The Bee Gees on my Asian tour. That way people in the audience who don't understand a word of French don't get left out. I think that ended up working rather well in fact.

- RFI/MUSIQUE: Of all the people you've met on this tour is there any one encounter which has particularly marked you?
- ZAZIE: Not one but two! There was a Frenchman in Yangon, Guy de la Chevalerie (director of the local Alliance Française). He's an amazing character who really relates to the countries he's working in - he doesn't just skim the surface like a tourist. Guy's a wonderful man, there's so much humane feeling, so much depth to him. And then in Angkor there were these two little girls hanging around the temples selling knick-knacks and stuff to tourists. We spent about fifteen minutes just standing there pulling faces at each other and at the end they gave me this little ring. Not because they wanted to make me buy something, but as a kind of thankyou for having messed around and joked with them for a while.

- RFI/MUSIQUE: So it's back to Paris tomorrow Zazie - will you be straight off doing more concerts?
- ZAZIE: Absolutely not! I've done my grand finale now and it's about time I got down to work on my new album. If I don't start soon I'm going to get in big trouble with my record company.

- RFI/MUSIQUE: Is your new album likely to feature any songs inspired by Asia?
- ZAZIE : I've no doubt it will, but they won't necessarily be songs which are very obviously inspired by Asia. I'd be surprised if I wrote a song about Angkor Wat for example, even if my visit there was one of the most powerful experiences of my life. The songs are more likely to be inspired by a certain emotion, a certain look - and when it comes to that, I can assure you I've got plenty of inspiration in stock!