The Hugues Le Paige archives
- Access and consultation : The collection can be consulted in digital form on the computers of the reading room of via Pallas. Its content is freely available.
- Reproduction : The content of the collection can be freely reproduced in the reading room. For any reproduction request by the CegeSoma teams, practical information is available here.
- Research tools : 1) Inventory of the Hugue Le Paige archives 2) Inventory of diapositives 3) Inventory of photographic archives 4) List of films archives
Collection description :
Hugues Le Paige is a Belgian journalist born in Bruxelles in 1946. From 1965 to 1969, he studied journalism at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. In 1970, he joined the RTBF, where he worked as a radio and television journalist (notably as a correspondent in Rome between 1978 and 1981 and in Paris from 1986 to 1990). He then worked as a director and producer of documentary films for Belgian public television. Disagreeing with the evolution of the RTBF’S editorial policies, he retired at the age of 58. He has nevertheless continued to direct documentary films, the most popular being “Il fare politica” (which retraces the political involvement of four Italian communists, who experienced transformations and political changes in their society in Italy) and is the author of several books on politics and history. Notably, he founded and managed la revue Politique, a Belgian magazine for analysis and debate between 1997 and 2017. He still regularly publishes articles for la revue. He also maintains his “Blog-Notes”, in which he reflects upon and analyses political developments in France, Belgium, Italy, etc.
During his career, Hugues Le Paige has produced about ten documentaries on political issues in Belgium and abroad, dealing with the lives of politicians as well as with political-media events, including: Lumières sur l'oubli (1986) ; Le pouvoir du temps, le temps du pouvoir (1991) ; Le front du Nord (1992) ; Chronique sur la Piccola Russia (1993) ; François Mitterrand : portrait en surimpressions (1994) ; 18-20, avenue de Stalingrad (1994) ; O Belgio moi (1997) ; L'objecteur (1998) ; Jean la couture ou la position du biographe (2000) ; Le prince et son image » (2011).
Hugues Le Paige’s archives were entrusted to CegeSoma in two separate installments: the first composed of four boxes donated handed over in 2012 (number: AA2320) and the second composed of 27 boxes handed over in 2015 (AA2439). They now constitute one single inventory. The Le Paige archives consist of a great number of paper and audiovisual archives of various formats. The latter are largely composed of rushes used to make Le Paige’s documentaries. The paper archives, on the other hand, combine different types of documents which complement the audiovisual documents. This includes, amongst other things, magazines, press clippings, slides, photographs, handwritten notes concerning the documentaries, etc. The topics addressed mainly focus on the evolution of the RTB to the RTBF and Hugues Le Paige’s disagreements with internal policy. But work has also been carried out on political issues, François Mitterrand’s career, his own political career, Jean Lacouture, Jean Van Lierde, civil wars, the left in Belgium, etc.
For more information :