Memories of pioneers and mavericks: RFI alumni tell the story of this international radio station on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, via a website powered by their memories and independent of the management of the public station.
“We want to highlight the extent to which this radio is an essential media, a link between France and the rest of the world,” Jean-Pierre Boris, retired for three years, told AFP.
With Jacqueline Papet, Alejandro Valente and Hervé Guillemot, other alumni, he is part of the quartet of founders and hosts of “50 years of RFI” (https://50ans-rfi.fr).
“We each wrote one or two stories but the rest of the texts are the testimonies of the people who made RFI,” he continues.
The format chosen is that of 50 stories, one published per week. Alejandro Valente opened the ball on Monday with an introductory statement. Guy Riboreau, “the first to take the microphone on January 20, 1975 to launch RFI”, will testify next Monday in a text.
Very popular in Africa, RFI (Radio France Internationale) broadcasts in French and 16 other languages. It was initially part of the Radio France group, which it left in 1987. It now belongs to another public group, France Médias Monde, which also includes the continuous news channel France 24.
“We don’t know if we’re going to stick to the framework because we already have a lot of people who want to contribute. Maybe we’ll be forced to overflow,” laughs Jean-Pierre Boris. Who will also recount his beginnings: “totally improvised since I had not attended journalism school and I did not do any after that”.
“I left in September 1978 for Latin America, with the idea of selling stories to various French media. Probably my most memorable reports were those I did in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship,” he recalls .
In 1982, he was recruited by RFI thanks to his work in Latin America “but the funny thing about the situation is that my first mission was to produce newspapers for Africa”.
Beyond the small personal stories and the big History told in real time by RFI, the site also pays tribute to the members of the radio family who disappeared on mission in the field such as Johanne Sutton, Jean Hélène, Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon.
