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| The headquarters of Agence France-Presse remains in the same location in central Paris, where it began in 1944 (AFP Photo/FRANCOIS GUILLOT) |
Paris (AFP) - Agence France-Presse was created in the tumult of World War II by a band of journalists who stormed a pro-Nazi newsroom and took over as Paris was in revolt.
It was
August 20, 1944, the day after Resistance leader Henri Rol-Tanguy had called
Parisians into action against the Nazis who had occupied their city for four
years.
Propaganda
The group
of eight met at 7:00 am outside a dilapidated building near the stock exchange
on Place de la Bourse, in the heart of Paris, where the French Information
Office (OFI) was installed.
It had been
the home of Havas, the world's first international news agency that was
nationalised by the pro-Nazi regime in 1940 to set up the OFI.
"It had become an agency of German propaganda," one of the eight, Gilles Martinet, recalled in a radio interview in 2004.
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Havas
agency, here pictured in the 1930s, was the world's first international
news
agency and the precursor to AFP (AFP Photo)
|
"It had become an agency of German propaganda," one of the eight, Gilles Martinet, recalled in a radio interview in 2004.
The streets
were empty on that summer Sunday, although a German tank was stationed close
by, another of the group, Basile Tesselin, would write later in his memoirs.
There was
the sound of gunfire as Parisians heeded the call to mobilise without waiting
for French and Allied soldiers to arrive to free their city.
'Nobody
move'
The group
was soon joined by two policemen sent by the Resistance committee organising
the Paris uprising. They were the only ones carrying weapons.
Together
they stole up the stairs and burst into the newsroom. Ten heads darted up, astonished.
 |
A
reproduction of the first news dispatch of the Agence Française
de Presse,
which soon became the Agence France-Presse (AFP Photo)
|
"Nobody
moves, nobody leaves," shouted Martial Bourgeon, the eldest in the group
of mostly former Havas editors. "From now on you work for France, and not
the Germans."
No one
moved. A German censor was taken to the basement and locked in.
Bourgeon
took charge and assigned roles. Martinet was made editor-in-chief.
The
journalists immediately set to work, making contact with teams of underground
newspapers such as Combat, Defense de la France, Le Parisien Libere and
L'Humanite.
First
dispatch
At 11:30 am
the first story went out, announcing they were back in business.
"At
the service of all free newspapers, Agence Française de Presse will ensure,
with a strict objectivity that is the duty of a news organisation, the publishing
of news that has been scrupulously checked and verified...," it said.
The dispatch also paid hommage to other journalists missing or captured by the Nazi police.
 |
Journalists
at the Havas news agency in Paris in the 1930s, before it was
nationalised by the
pro-Nazi German regime during World War II (AFP Photo)
|
The dispatch also paid hommage to other journalists missing or captured by the Nazi police.
"As
fighting continues in the city, and where new freedom fighters fall, we salute
all our comrades of the press who have disappeared, are imprisoned and
deported, and in particular our 21 comrades who have fallen into the hands of
the Gestapo."
Network
grows
The first
stories were printed on early stencil duplication Roneo machines and
distributed by cyclists to newspapers and Resistance offices across the city.
Communication
was established with journalists of the French government-in-exile led by
Charles de Gaulle.
The news
team grew fast. People slept at the office and raided the stocks of a nearby
restaurant that had served as a canteen for German officers. On the menu: pate,
foie gras and fine wines.
 |
Parisians
buy newspapers August 1944, after the city was freed from Nazi
occupation in an
uprising that also saw the establishment of AFP (AFP Photo)
|
Paris
liberated
Over the
next days reporters crossed the city on bicycles, watching for the arrival of
the first French troops.
The scoop
went to Tesselin, who had installed himself in the police headquarters with a
phone line from the police chief's bathroom.
"General
(Philippe) Leclerc entered Paris this morning, at 8:45, through the Porte
d'Orleans amid indescribable enthusiasm," he reported on August 25.
"His
troops were greeted by bursts of machine-gun fire from the rooftops, where
militia and Germans dressed as civilians were posted."
A fierce
shootout ensued and Germans were taken prisoner, Tesselin reported.
Just hours
later, other dispatches announced that the Germans had surrendered.
 |
The headquarters
of Agence France-Presse remains in the same location in
central Paris, where it
began in 1944 (AFP Photo/FRANCOIS GUILLOT)
|
Paris was
liberated.
Worldwide
In 1957,
the French parliament adopted the AFP Statute guaranteeing the agency's
editorial independence and financial autonomy.
Still headquartered
at Place de la Bourse, it has expanded to cover more than 150 countries,
becoming one of world's biggest news agencies alongside Reuters and Associated
Press.
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