(Paris) 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 beginning of the Russian invasion.
Updated yesterday at 5:08 p.m.
“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.
The head of French diplomacy, Catherine Colonna, said in a tweet that the reporter had been “killed by a Russian bombardment on a humanitarian operation” and condemned 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”.
She also told AFP that she had asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “to do everything possible so that the Ukrainian authorities help us” and “allow the return” of the journalist’s body “to his family as soon as possible”.
BFMTV confirmed the death of its 32-year-old image reporter on its antenna.
He was hit by “shrapnel while following a humanitarian operation,” the channel said.
In a message posted on the Telegram network, the governor of the Luhansk region said that Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff was hit in the neck while he was wearing a helmet.
This was the second mission to Ukraine for the videographer, who had worked for BFMTV for six years.
Journalist Maxime Brandstaetter, who accompanied the JRI on this report, was “slightly injured”, the channel said.
The French national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office announced Monday evening the opening of a judicial investigation for “war crimes”, after the death of Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff and the injury of Maxime Brandstaetter.
Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia at the end of February, at least eight journalists have died on the ground in the exercise of their profession, according to a count by RSF (Reporters Without Borders).
In March, a Franco-Irish Fox News cameraman, Pierre Zakrzewski, and Oleksandra Kuvshynova, a Ukrainian who accompanied him, died in Horenka, northwest of the capital, after the attack on their vehicle.
“Not a hothead”
“We strongly condemn this assassination. The list of Russian crimes against media professionals in Ukraine continues to grow,” Oleg Nikolenko, spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, said on Twitter on Monday.
According to this official, “the Russian army bombed a vehicle which was to evacuate civilians from the war zone, near Severodonetsk”.
“The armored truck was not hit directly, but shrapnel went through the armored windshield. A burst touched Frédéric, ”said Patrick Sauce, great reporter for the news channel.
“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 [pour évaluer les risques] : Oksana and Frédéric felt that the mission was secure enough 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 [de sa mère, au téléphone] 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 Institute of Journalism Bordeaux Aquitaine, from which Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff had graduated in 2014, told AFP to keep “the memory of a student as endearing as passionate, rigorous and sensitive”.
“Journalists are civilians. It is a war crime,” reacted the director of Reporter Without Borders (RSF) Christophe Deloire.