Journalist Gérard Leclerc, former president of The Parliamentary Channel, disappears in a plane crash

2023-08-16 00:20:21

The CNews columnist, who worked for France Télévisions for a long time, was on board a small device which crashed in the Loire on Tuesday.

He marked the French audiovisual landscape for more than forty years. Journalist Gérard Leclerc, former president of The Parliamentary Channel (LCP), disappeared on Tuesday August 15, at the age of 71, in a plane crash. He was on board his small device when it crashed in the Loire, in Lavau-sur-Loire (Loire-Atlantique), learned France Télévisions from concordant sources. Debris from the aircraft, which had disappeared between Nantes and La Baule at midday, was spotted near a lock. The search on the spot was suspended in the evening. “No body has been formally found”says the floor.

Gérard Leclerc made his radio debut, first at Europe 1, then at RMC, before spending most of his career at France Télévisions. In 1985, he joined France 2 (formerly Antenne 2), where he was notably head of the economics department and the political department, editor-in-chief of “Télématin”, as well as deputy editorial director. He then joined France 3 in 2007, first in the economic and social service, then as editor-in-chief of the political service.

After France Télévisions, LCP, Radio Classique and CNews

In 2009, Gérard Leclerc was appointed president of La Chaîne Parlementaire-Assemblée Nationale (LCP), where he served two terms, until 2015. The journalist then reconnected with his first radio loves by officiating regularly, since 2015, in the morning of Classic Radio. Since 2017, Gérard Leclerc has also joined the private channel CNews as a political columnist. He is on the show “Time for the Pros”. He also brings his expertise as a journalist as an editorial advisor for the quarterly review WeDemain.

Gérard Leclerc is the half-brother of singer Julien Clerc. “Fortunately I don’t have a talent for singing. It would have bothered me to row behind”, he confided for the newspaper The world in 2008. He is married to radio host Julie Leclerc, who worked for a long time on Europe 1, with whom he had three children.

Tributes from colleagues

The announcement of the journalist’s disappearance was welcomed by many colleagues with whom he worked. “Gérard Leclerc was an honest man. He was also a nice person. I liked his intelligence, his humor, his distance”tweeted Pascal Praud, of CNews. “I liked our complicity, I liked our disagreements, I especially liked that he was present on the set.” In a tweetthe Canal Plus group announces that the CNews channel will broadcast a program on Wednesday August 16, in tribute to the one who “through his relevant points of view, his always precise and well-argued analyses, and his professionalism, (…) has enabled (the channel) to grow, contributing to its success”.

CNews reporter Laurence Ferrari hailed the memory of a “very great journalist, a free spirit and an extraordinary team-mate”. François Beaudonnet, journalist at France Télévisions, paid tribute to “a talented journalist” et “an elegant and funny man”. The news director of France Télévisions, Alexandre Kara, wrote to have lost “a friend with whom we have shared the best” of which he underlines the “kindness”the “belle intelligence” and the “jokes that still resonate in the corridors of the editorial staff”.

Jean-Pierre Raffarin, for his part, wanted to remember “ethics” of the journalist, while emphasizing his love for Poitou, where Gérard Leclerc owned vines, as recalled The New Republic. The former Prime Minister also paid tribute to the passenger of the plane, Michèle Monory, daughter of the former President of the Senate René Monory.