Europe 1 with AFP 10:36 a.m., June 09, 2022

The remains of the BFMTV journalist, killed in a bombing in Ukraine, were repatriated to Le Bourget airport overnight from Wednesday to Thursday.

A tribute will be paid on Friday June 10 in Paris, with friends, family and colleagues, at the call of Reporters Without Borders in particular.

The remains of journalist Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, killed in Ukraine, arrived overnight from Wednesday to Thursday in France, welcomed by members of his family, relatives and the Minister of Culture Rima Abdul Malak, noted a photographer from the AFP.

In front of his coffin draped in black, a moment of contemplation took place on the tarmac of Le Bourget airport, where his body arrived around "a little over 3 a.m." in the morning, said journalists from his channel. BFMTV continuous news.

Late Wednesday morning, his colleagues from BFMTV had observed a minute of silence in memory of the journalist killed on May 30 by a shrapnel. 

A tribute will also be paid to him on Friday at 6:30 p.m. Place de la République in Paris, at the call of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in particular.

His family, friends and colleagues will be present.

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“It is very important that the whole world hears what happened with Frédéric”

The two people who teamed up with Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff in Ukraine for BFMTV, reporter Maxime Brandstaetter and Ukrainian journalist-translator Oksana Leuta, for their part returned to France on June 3.

"His parents came to welcome us when we got off the plane, they were the first people I saw and it was not easy", testified Sunday on BFMTV Maxime Brandstaetter, visibly very moved.

The minute of silence in tribute to Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, our journalist killed in Ukraine pic.twitter.com/4eUYUC014j

– BFMTV (@BFMTV) June 8, 2022

"I felt that I owed him that, to talk to his parents, to talk to them, to get closer to them, to feel close, to kiss his mother," the reporter continued.

Oksana Leuta judged it "very important that the whole world hear what happened with Frédéric".

“He fervently defended his commitments as a man and as a citizen”

Aged 32, Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff had worked for BFMTV for six years and was carrying out his second mission there in Ukraine, as a journalist and image reporter (JRI).

"Frédéric was not a hothead. He weighed every minute of his mission," said Marc-Olivier Fogiel, director general of BFMTV, on the air, just after the announcement of his death. 

Graduated in 2014, he had been trained in journalism at the Institute of Journalism Bordeaux Aquitaine (Ijba), after studying philosophy in Paris.

In a tribute on its site, the Ijba underlines "its kindness" and "its sense of listening".

Even if he was "discreet" by nature, he "defended with fervor and a lot of humor" his "commitments as a man and as a citizen".

On May 30, after the announcement of the death of the journalist who was following a humanitarian mission in Ukraine, the French national anti-terrorist prosecutor's office (Pnat) announced the opening of an investigation for war crimes.

Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna tweeted that the journalist had been "killed by a Russian bombardment".

I am deeply saddened & shocked by the death of our compatriot Frédéric Leclerc Imhoff, killed by a Russian bombardment on a humanitarian operation while exercising his duty to inform.

All my thoughts are with his family, colleagues and journalists.

— Catherine Colonna (@MinColonna) May 30, 2022