Johanne Sutton, 20 years later: remembering a friend, a colleague, a professional
Audio 02:29
Johanne Sutton.
© B.Leveillé / RFI
By: RFI Follow
3 min
On November 11, 2001, our colleague Johanne Sutton was killed in Afghanistan.
20 years after RFI don't forget, Johanne was a personality as strong as she was endearing and an excellent professional.
Portrait of Johanne Sutton by Arthur Fradin from the Lille School of Journalists.
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Johanne Sutton's story begins in Casablanca, where she was born in 1966. The rest is played out in the Parisian suburbs, in the Yvelines, between Le Vésinet and Marly-le-Roi, where she went to college. It was there that she met actor Guillaume de Tonquédec, her great friend. It tells about their common passion for the theater.
We had a pretty important moment for me, at least for me because it became my job, we did theater.
And Johanne was very, very talented, she played very well, we had done a piece by Georges Feydeau called “But don't walk around naked”, she said to me: “I can't play such a stupid thing. 'is all the same stupid, this stupid woman, a character, a kind of bourgeois a little lost like that ”.
And she was exceptional, she was even distinguished by the jury, because we had made an inter-school competition at the Montensier theater in Versailles, she had been distinguished by the jury.
A reference in his promo
Despite her talent and this distinction, Johanne Sutton did not choose a theatrical career. It will be journalism. She joined the 64th promotion of ESJ Lille in 1988, alongside Vincent Pellegrini. Great voice of sport on France Info, he remembers that she was a reference in his promotion. “
Johanne was someone very appreciated, because she was very interested in others, she was a very bright, very cultured girl, who always had a smile. And, he was someone who, quite quickly at school, wanted to do radio. First of all, she had a very, very, beautiful voice, very beautiful radio writing, and she was quite quickly conquered by this medium. Suddenly, he was also a driving force for the radio specialization that we did together.
"
In 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, Johanne Sutton, still a student, put her voice in front of the microphone.
"
Thursday, November 9, the East German television newspaper announces the historic decision ...
".
On site, the students had produced a series of reports.
“
An exceptional chance
,” recalls Vincent Pellegrini.
"She did not want privileged treatment"
When leaving school, Johanne Sutton does an internship in the reporting service of Radio France Internationale.
She will spend her entire career there.
Alberic de Gouville was his colleague for several years.
“
Johanne was head of the reporting service, and then she got fed up, she wanted to go into the field.
So, she didn't quit with loss and crash, but made it known that she wanted to change.
"
Request accepted.
Johanne Sutton returns to her first love, finds the field and travels the territories for RFI.
“
When she went back to being a grassroots reporter, she didn't want privileged treatment.
She just wanted to do her job as a reporter,
”he continues.
A profession carried out with passion to the end, on this ground that she loved so much.
She died there in Taloqan on November 11, 2001, aged only 34.
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