A French journalist, working for the BFMTV channel, was killed Monday in Ukraine and his colleague injured while accompanying civilians on board a humanitarian bus, bringing to eight the number of reporters killed since the start of the invasion Russian.
“Journalist, Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff was in Ukraine to show the reality of the war. On board a humanitarian bus, alongside civilians forced to flee to escape Russian bombs, he was fatally shot,” French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on Twitter.
“To those who carry out the difficult mission of informing in theaters of operations, I would like to reiterate France’s unconditional support,” he added.
This was the second mission to Ukraine for the videographer, who had worked for BFMTV for 6 years.
The head of French diplomacy, Catherine Colonna, said in a tweet that the 32-year-old reporter had been “killed by a Russian bombardment on a humanitarian operation while exercising his duty to inform”, condemning a “double crime which targets a humanitarian convoy and a journalist”.
The minister “demanded” “a transparent investigation as soon as possible to shed full light on the circumstances of this tragedy”.
“Informing should not cost any life,” tweeted Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.
The continuous news channel BFMTV confirmed the death of its image reporter on its antenna.
He was hit by “shrapnel while following a humanitarian operation,” she said.
Journalist Maxime Brandstaetter, who accompanied the image reporter on this report, was “slightly injured”, the channel said.
Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, at least eight journalists have died on the ground in the exercise of their profession, according to a count by the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
“We strongly condemn this assassination. The list of Russian crimes against media professionals in Ukraine continues to grow,” said Oleg Nikolenko, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, on Twitter.
According to this official, “the Russian army bombed a vehicle which was to evacuate civilians from the war zone, near Severodonetsk”.
The governor of the Lugansk region had warned in the afternoon on the Telegram network that the operation, which aimed to evacuate 10 people, had been canceled as a result.
“The armored truck was not hit directly, but shrapnel went through the armored windshield. A burst touched Frédéric,” said Patrick Sauce, senior reporter at BFMTV.
“Maxime was in the back, he was injured in the leg. Oksana Leuta, the Ukrainian fixer-translator is doing well,” added the journalist.
“Frédéric was not a hothead. He weighed every minute of his mission, ”said visibly moved Marc-Olivier Fogiel, general manager of BFMTV, on the set of the channel.
The three members of the team “exchanged like every morning (to assess the risks, editor’s note): Oksana and Frédéric considered that the mission was sufficiently secure to be able to go there. Maxime, he had more questions, as he could have had the day before or the next day. But (…) that’s also a reporting team, it’s very close-knit people, they decided to go there, ”explained the boss of BFMTV.
“The first reaction (from his mother, on the phone, editor’s note) was to ask how Maxime and the fixer were doing. She knew what her son’s job was (…) with a form of pride,” he concluded.
The Bordeaux Aquitaine Institute of Journalism, located in the south-west of France and from which Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff graduated in 2014, told AFP that they keep “the memory of a student as endearing as he was passionate, rigorous and sensitive”.