Frédéric Lopez: “I take the elevator with two women…”, this moment that marked him for life

Wednesday, December 18, 2024, Frédéric Lopez gave an interview to Psychologies Magazine. The opportunity for the host of the show Un dimanche à la campagne to evoke a moment in his career that marked him life.

© BestImage Fr&déric Lopez confided in In the columns of Psychologies Magazine.

IN BRIEF

• Frédéric Lopez, a 57-year-old presenter, began his career on LCI before leaving current affairs journalism, dissatisfied by the lack of meaning in his work.
• During the TWA crash in 1996, he was confronted with the pain of the victims' families, which led him to leave the 'all news' for a movie magazine.
• Discover how this significant experience transformed Frédéric Lopez's career and his approach to journalism.

Rendez-vous en terre inconnue, La parenthèse inconnue, Un Dimanche à la campagne… If Frédéric Lopez is today to be an attentive ear to his guests, he began his career on news channels.However, it was when it didn't suit him that he ended up leaving current affairs journalism at its beginnings. On Wednesday, December 18, 2024, for Psychologies Magazine, he recalled having started at LCI, where he learned “étreméméé;tremé”.

“But I had trouble finding meaning in what I was doing: I was sent to cover disasters, interview victims, they shared their pain on my microphone, and then it was over, I went back to another area, another drama, another subject… It was an endless loop”, he deplored before mentioning the TWA crash in 1996, where he was sent in the middle of the night to Roissy.

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Frédéric Lopez: “I wondered what I was doing there”

Particularly moved, the 57-year-old host recalled: “I take the elevator with two women, who happen to be the mother and sister of a victim. I feel their pain, I see their anguish… The doors open. Physically, I am on their side. In front of us, a forest of microphones and cameras“, before adding: “It was very, very oppressive, and I wondered what I was doing there. Shortly after, I left the 'all news' for a movie magazine”.

Friday, November 15, 2019, on the set of C à vous, on France 5, Frédéric Lopez had already mentioned this memory. “The editorial staff woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me that a plane had crashed off the coast of New York. And I'm a journalist and I don't really understand what I should do. But they tell me to go to the airport even though I don't really know what happened”, he said.

Frédéric Lopez: “They éwere devastated”

In front of Anne-Élisabeth Lemoine and her columnists, the latter had explained: “While I was speaking into the microphone, there were families arriving to pick up their loved ones. They saw 'flight cancelled' and went to the counter to get information. That's when they learned of the tragedy that had taken place. They were devastated”.

Upset, Frédéric Lopez had added : “I was happy about this realization. But after 30 minutes, I was talking to the cameraman who was filming who was learning in turn of the disappearance of his loved ones”. À At the time, his editor-in-chief congratulated him. “It was very complicated to say to myself 'what am I transmitting, what am I telling the world ?”, he had wondered then.