France: The French President Jacques Chirac yesterday asked journalists not to go to Iraq, saying "the security of our press correspondents cannot be ensured there".
Speaking at his annual New Year's media reception, Mr Chirac reacted to the disappearance of Florence Aubenas (43), a correspondent for Libération newspaper who went missing with her interpreter, Hussein Hanoun Al Saadi, in Baghdad on Wednesday.
Mr Al Saadi was in the habit of telephoning his wife every two hours to reassure her. Their last conversation took place at 11.30 on Wednesday morning. Ms Aubenas was supposed to check in with her foreign desk twice a day. Her two-page article entitled Iraq; the War of the Elections was published on Thursday.
Only three French correspondents are still working in Iraq, and Ms Aubenas' disappearance has revived the debate about sending journalists there. Reporters Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot were kidnapped last August and freed on December 21st.
Most of the Western media in Baghdad live in armed fortresses and use Iraqi part-time correspondents as their ears and eyes. Conflicts in Lebanon in the 1980s and Algeria in the 1990s raised the same question: Is there a point where a news story becomes too dangerous to cover?
Reporters Without Borders says Iraq is the most dangerous country for journalists. Nineteen reporters and 12 media workers were killed there in 2004, and at least 12 journalists were kidnapped.
Mr Chirac reminded that "the French authorities formally advise against sending journalists to this country. It is a question of responsibility." While he "understood the demands of the profession," he said, there was "a limit - putting the lives of people at risk." Serge July, the chairman of the board of Libération, said it was possible Ms Aubenas was injured in a traffic accident or bombing, or was arrested by US or Iraqi forces.
However, Libération will continue to cover the war in Iraq. "What you're asking is, 'Should we cover wars'?'" When asked if it was irresponsible to send correspondents to Baghdad, Mr July said: "At Libération, we believe it's our job to cover wars... It is part of the nobility of our vocation, not to take careless risks, but to inform our readers. Otherwise, what happens? Mr Rumsfeld will be our press agency. He'll write the communiques."
The right-wing newspaper Le Figaro will not follow suit. "We have no plans to send anyone," said Pierre Rousselin, the foreign editor. "The risk is too great, and it's not worth it. Someone who's a potential hostage cannot be a good journalist." Mr Rousselin said Le Figaro was deterred by the four-month captivity of their stringer Georges Malbrunot. After Ms Aubenas' disappearance, Mr Malbrunot told i-Télé: "There will be a lot of kidnappings. In Baghdad, you cannot work on the ground. The risk to Western journalists is huge." TF1, France's leading television network, has not sent a reporter to Baghdad since the US election in November. "After Chesnot and Malbrunot were kidnapped, we realised that we had become unwitting participants in the conflict and could no longer do our job of bearing witness to what happened, " said Catherine Nayl, the chief of correspondents. "This is not like other wars - it's much more dangerous." Ms Nayl said she had hoped to send a team to Baghdad for the January 30th elections, but was having second thoughts now.
Marie-Christine Saragosse, the acting chairman of the international French channel TV5, said while she would never ask a journalist to go to Iraq, she would find it difficult to say no if an experienced, motivated correspondent volunteered to go.