To say that Patrice Vanoni’s life has been exciting would be an understatement. Explosive is the word we are looking for. In his three-decade-long career, the former international reporter, a French national, has seen first-hand and lived to tell the tale of some of history’s most topical times, through wars, conflicts, rebellions, disasters, famines, floods, elections, and celebrations and has also interviewed some of the world’s movers and shakers. Patrice, who began his career as a freelance journalist for several French magazines and radio channels and for Le Monde newspaper and then went on to work as a foreign correspondent for major French television networks such as TF1, Canal +, I TV and Arte, is now an international reporter at the service of French institutions. In this capacity he was, for a time, the audiovisual attaché at the Embassy of France in India.
In a time when international reporting is fraught with more danger than, perhaps, ever before, and foreign correspondents as well as their stories make front page news, Patrice, who is in the city for a session on international reporting, organised by the Alliance Francaise de Trivandrum, takes a few quick questions about his eventful career. Excerpts...
What drew you to international reporting?
I’ve always had a bit of wanderlust. Although I grew up in Paris, my father was a shipbroker and the family travelled all over the place. We also lived in Morocco for a while. I started my career as a regular reporter and started to go on assignments abroad. In the 80s it was a very complicated job because you had to travel with a cameraman and sound technician and lug around heavy equipment. In contrast, today it’s just you and your hand-held video recorder against the world. Back then though, I always used to carry a camera along with me which allowed me to capture on frame some interesting incidents, particularly while I was covering the activities of the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
I was also one of the few international journalists who was actually in Amritsar in 1984 during the Golden Temple siege. Many of my fellow journalists were stuck in Delhi, while I managed to cross into Punjab via Lahore and was able to get some exclusive stories.
Can you tell us about some of your most difficult assignments?
That would probably be Liberia and Sierra Leone in the early 1990s. It was a very violent conflict. People walked around with machetes, killing their countrymen at the drop of a hat. Many of the so-called soldiers were very young. Sometimes before these child soldiers maimed their ‘enemies’ they would ask: ‘Do you want to wear a long sleeve or a short sleeve?’ and promptly chop off their arms accordingly!
Equally difficult an assignment was the bombing of the UTA Flight 772 in 1989. It crashed in the Sahara desert in Niger and all the 170 people on board died. It was quite emotional too because my then girlfriend was working with the airline and I also knew all the crew. Along with the French military, I reached the site only 10 days after the incident and had to identify bodies, which were almost decomposed beyond recognition.
Were they also the toughest of assignments you had to cover?
No. That one is reserved for Somalia and Ethiopia during the famine. People were starving and I have witnessed rebels stealing much of the food aid distributed by international agencies. It was disheartening to see the children picking leftover grains of rice from the dirt. I vividly remember how actress Sophia Lauren, who had come to one of the refugee camps as a Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations, burst into tears at the sight.
As a journalist, you have been to almost all the hotspots in the world. Today you are more of a journalism mentor and professor. What made you shift?
Age caught up with me! (Laughs) Seriously, the job was physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting. I have seen more horrors than I care to remember. I was in Lebanon during the height of the Hezbollah resistance; I was in the midst of the Iraq war and in Afghanistan, embedded with the French and United States armies, and at times on the other side; I have seen people firing Kalshnikovs in Libya just for the fun of it… I have seen humanity at its worst and at its best. Over the course of my career, I have travelled to some 105 countries. Enough is enough.
How has international journalism changed from when you were active in the field?
It has become much more coordinated and organised nowadays and in many ways easier than in the past. Then again, it has now become very dangerous for a journalist in conflict. Earlier you could report from the rebel side without much fear of attack. They would let you do your job, with minimal interference. Today, as we have been seeing of late, journalists have become pawns in the game; they are being held hostage for ransom or attacked simply to ‘teach’ governments a lesson.
