The farewell to Camille : face to faith

L'adieu à Camille Lepage : face à la foi. - Les obsèques de Camille Lepage, la jeune photo reporter tuée il y a quelques jours en République centrafricaine, ont réuni de nombreuses connaissances familiales et professionnelles. Après les hommages professionnels, le service religieux a insisté sur les qualités personnelles dont Camille avait fait preuve dans son métier, qui était pour elle beaucoup plus qu'un métier. 

Intimates, relatives and neighbours of Camille Lepage parents and brother were gathered in Saint-Maurice cathedral on May 20th to says googbye and thank you to the young Angers born photoreporter killed in an ambush between militias the 12th before in Centrafican republic. Even the weather was gloomy after the sunny days the city experienced the previous week, as if the sky was also sad to lost a friend. The professional tribute paid by fellow journalists from France and abroad had left room for a religious service full of emotion and grief. 

If two officicials were there, Christophe Béchu for the city and François Burdeyron, prefect, for the country, most of the attendants were people who met Camille at school or at work or his relatives. Among those, many young people were there, former students mates of the Saint-Martin institution or unversities as well as persons soon gathered by a wedding to which Camille was due to take part. The funeral service pointed out that for Camille her photo reporter job was much more than a job for her : a passion and even a moral duty which cost her the life. 

Just after the end of the religious service, a farewell line came to bow her coffin girded with the three colors of the France banner and, on the coffin a very symbolic souvenir : a simple photo shot in the Saint-Laud railway station with Camille waiting the train for an unknown destination. The girl has luggages at her feet. She is smiling. The picture sums up her carreer, her character, her fate and her faith face to an unknown future. Then, after the songs, the testimonies, the prayers, the reading and the homily, Camille's coffin was left in a hearse which slowly wen away under the rain, leaving the attendants alone with a big vacuum in their heart.