Rene Backmann

Rene Backmann is a journalist and humane French

Biography

Born in 1944, Rene Backmann is high close to Saint-Etienne in a medium of glass workmen to preserving sympathies and the readings rather gaullists (the Hope) and catholics (the Pilgrim). In an at the same time Christian and trade-union environment - his/her father is militant CFTC -, it is plunged very early in social struggles and a union action which anchor at his place a major hostility to the authority. The Guerre of Algeria does not constitute of it less the major event which sees emerging its political conscience and which leads it to read newspapers of left anticolonialists like the Express train, Le Monde or France Observer. It leaves there relatively radicalized since, the baccalaureat out of pocket, it is registered with J.C.R. while following studies of letters to the faculty of Lyon. It spends there two years until it passes successfully the contest of C.F.J (1964). After a training course with the Progress of Lyon and a curtailed military service, it is in the search of a work when Philippe Viannay, which had noticed it in the hebdo school for an article on Grenoble, introduces it near Jean Daniel.

Thus this last recruits it with the end of the year 1966 to take part in the Grenoble-native edition that Nouvel Observateur wishes to launch to support the legislative countryside of Pierre Mendès France. From March to April 1967, it thus works with the success of the former president of the council but it is the object of a request for reference of its share for a critical article towards directors of Houses of Young people and Culture of left. Preserving its place thanks to a counter-enquiry of Josette Combined and the refusal of Jean Daniel to fold with the political pressures, it remains a few months more in the Rhone-Alps to deal with regional edition (May-June 1967).

Of return to Paris, it is attached to the service “Our Time” and is charged, of share its young age, to treat the questions of youth, Education and University. Maintaining the very friendly relationship with student leaders like Daniel Cohn-Bendit, he is thus the only journalist present during the creation of the movement of March 22nd. In the forefront of the events of May 68, it publishes, with his colleague Lucien Rioux, an imposing chronicle where it rejects, amongst other things, theses of the plot Maoist or American. In parallel, it carries out in company of Jean Moreau, Claude Angéli and Olivier Todd, the fight for a modification of the capacity within the direction. From 1969, it starts to collaborate in “the EVENT” by articles on the presidential campaign or a report in Chad.

But it treats especially repression which touches the movements gauchists and of the evolution of the police force, the SAC or the secret agents in any kind. It publishes even with Claude Angéli a collection of articles, the Police forces of the New business (François Maspero, 1971), in which it denounces with virulence police violences and the practices of the RG, considering amongst other things that “the police practices reveal the level reached in the increasingly authoritative evolution of the system”. Dividing its office with Angéli but also Yvon Valiant the, Serge Mallet and Albert Paul-Lentin, he is requested by the latter to belong to the team of Policy-Hebdo (1970). But in front of the absence of financial means, ideological cohesion and political freedom which appears to him within the founder team, it withdraws project after some meetings. It does not give up of it less the idea that transformations are necessary to Nouvel Observateur and is made elect secretary of the company of the writers in 1972. It then organizes an internal consultation on the state of the newspaper which is largely supported by the drafting and whose conclusions are very critical towards the operation and certain members of the direction. But, when it makes a report as a general meeting of it, it is only found with Olivier Todd to defend them.

This act, which causes the departure of Jean-Pierre Joulin and Pierre Rouanet, attracts the lightnings of the direction to him which almost deprives it of subject during one year (November 1972 - December 1973). Avoiding all false step likely to legitimate its dismissal, it must await the Révolution of the Eyelets to leave the wall cupboard. Indeed, the long stays which it accomplishes with the Portugal April 1974 in May 1975 make it possible him to be reintegrated in the newspaper. If it continues to treat interior “businesses” like the lawsuit Goldman (December 1974), it is integrated gradually in the foreign pages with the support of the chief of the foreign service, François Schlosser, and of its leader-writer K.S. Karol.

Second half of the Années 1970 thus sees it leaving slowly the purgatory but far from the newspaper, mainly to Southern Africa and Eastern.

It thus leaves to cover the Angola (November 1975 - March 1976), the Mozambique (February 1977), the Rhodesia (be 1977), the Uganda (March 1979) or the Zimbabwe (March-April 1980). It treats a also little the Western Africa, the Latin America (in particular of Cuba) and the Mouvement of non-aligned the, denouncing overall the Néocolonialisme French, the Racisme or the attacks with the Human rights. It treats even Affaire of Diamonds in June 1980. But if it is promoted international reporter newspaper in 1979, its interest for Africa is also made within the framework its humane engagement.

Indeed, it integrates Mouvement Without Borders towards 1975 and binds to it friendship with Francis Charon and Rony Brauman, not hesitating to help this last in humane missions in Ethiopia or Uganda. It is besides by the means of MSF that it carries out a report with the Kampuchea during the summer 1979. About this country, it gives an opinion with Rony Brauman against the operation “a Boat for Vietnam” impelled by Bernard Kouchner. And the following year, it expresses hardly buckled reserves towards “walk for Vietnam” that his/her own friends of MSF support.

In parallel, within the newspaper, it appears with Marcelle Padovani like one of the leaders of the unit tendency and most favorable to the common Programme. Thus, if its Radicalisme rather carries it towards the ideas of PSU, he votes with enthusiasm for François Mitterrand in 1974 and 1981. On the intellectual level, it does not hide its hostility at the entry in force of the New philosophers nor his regret at the beginning, in 1979, of Jacques-Laurent Bost. But it intervenes more in the interior heading only to denounce the racist acts, the laws anti-immigration or the infringements of the human rights in the world as in France.

Treating the invasion of the Lebanon with the beginnings of the Years 1980, it starts to treat Israeli-Arab question as from February 1983. Refusing to leave the newspaper with Georges Granny and Irene To combine (1985), it widens its field with the whole of the the Middle East. Personal friend of Elias Sanbar but also of Henri Guirchoun and Charles Enderlin, it is sensitized with the Palestinian cause but runs up within the newspaper with Elisabeth Schemla until the departure of this one in 1995. Price of the Foundation Mumm (1991) for its investigation into “the Islam and the financial ones of the integrism”, he is the joint author of the media and humanitarian (CFPJ ED, 1996). In 2002, it succeeds François Schlosser with the head of the foreign service.

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