Christine Ockrent

Christine Ockrent — Biography

Christine Ockrent is a Belgian-born journalist who built her career in French television and became one of the best-known news presenters in France. From September 1981 she anchored the evening news on Antenne 2, among the first women to hold that job.

The daughter of a Belgian diplomat, she graduated from Sciences Po in 1965. While in charge of morning news at Europe 1 she also worked for the CBS programme 60 Minutes. In 1979, after the Islamic Revolution in Iran, her interview with former prime minister Amir-Abbas Hoveyda in Qasr Prison turned out to be the last press interview before his execution. On France 3 she hosted news and political programmes, and for over a decade she presented France Europe Express, a show about European affairs. She headed L'Express as editor in 1994-1996 and from February 2008 to May 2011 served as deputy chief executive of the external broadcaster Audiovisuel extérieur de la France.

As an author she has written more than a dozen books, among them La Double vie d'Hillary Clinton (2001), Les Oligarques : le système Poutine (2014) and Le Prince mystère de l'Arabie (2018). She is an Officer of the Legion of Honour and of the National Order of Merit and holds Belgium's Order of Leopold; she also acted in the 1984 film Le Bon Plaisir.