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Journalist’s arrest causes uproar in France

ARIANE LAVRILLEUX, a journalist with Disclose, was arrested by the French security service the Direction générale de la sécurité intérieure (DGSI) on 19 September in Marseilles. There was immediate outcry across media in the country - with even the BBC, the Guardian and the Times in the UK paying attention - and Amnesty International condemning the arrest.

This is something of a contrast with reporting of the detention of NUJ member Matt Broomfield on 24 August.

Ariane Lavrilleux

Image supplied to Amnesty International by Ariane Lavrilleux

Her "offence" was to have been a co-author of Disclose's Egypt papers. The publication "obtained hundreds of secret documents, circulated at the highest levels of the French state, which reveal the responsibility of France in crimes committed by the dictatorship of Abel Attach al-Sisi in Egypt". Publication began on 21 November 2021, revealing a clandestine joint military operation by France and Egypt, code named "Sirloin," in which French military intelligence assisted "arbitrary executions" by Egyptian forces.

Antoine Chuzeville, one of the five secretaries-general of the Syndic at national des journaliste's, tells the Freelance: "The SNJ, the main journalists' union in France, is extremely concerned with numerous police interventions against reporters. It's getting worse every year, and we are highly worried. Journalists and their sources must be protected by the authorities, not threatened!" A statement by the union "strongly condemns this new attack on the confidentiality of journalists' sources. This aims to intimidate the entire profession."

Ariane Lavrilleux was held in investigative detention for 39 hours. On her release she apologised for not meeting the colleages who had come to welcome her: she had been bundled out of the back of the police station: "it's a sign that you are disturbing them: keep up the struggle!"

This is not the only recent case of police action against journalists in France. For example:

On 20 June photographer Yoan Sthul-Jäger was arrested at 6am by anti-terror police and held until noon on 23 June. This is understood to be a result of his covering a "militant ecologist" action at a cement works in December 2022;
On 21 September three journalist at Libération, Ismaël Halissat, Fabien Leboucq and Antoine Schirer, were summoned for questioning after reporting on Amine Leknoun being killed by a policeman.
On 27 September Alex Jordanov repeated his demand that the authorities drop an investigation nto hom that followed his 2019 publication of Guerres de l'ombre de la DGSI ("The Security Service's Shadow Wars"). On 20 June 2022 he had been held for 48 hours.

29 September 2023 We un-spell-checked Antoine Chuzeville's name.

NUJ backs freelance detained for 5 hours