The Same Passion for Journalism and…

Le Monde has an article on Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, in which Stéphane Foucart and Bénédicte Mathieu explain how those intrepid writers shared "the same passion for journalism and the Arab world". The "recognized specialists on the Middle East" traveled and lived (!) through the entire Middle East, making friends, learning the language (Arabic), cultivating sources and contacts in (just about) every important country of the region (Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Palestine), writing for serious periodicals (Le Monde Diplomatique, Arabies, etc…), and generally "discovering new facets of Arab communities". Which probably goes far to explain why so many VIPs have gone out of their way to exhort their kidnappers to free them…