Jean-François Leroy

Jean-François Leroy (October 3, 1956, to August 31, 2026) was a French photographer, editor, and festival director who spent nearly four decades making Perpignan the world's great free gathering for photojournalism. As co-founder and longtime director of Visa pour l'Image, he took press photography out of magazine pages and put it on city walls, in churches and convents, and on giant evening screens, arguing that a free society needs journalists who go and see on its behalf. He died of cancer on the morning of Monday, August 31, 2026, at his Paris home, aged 69, surrounded by loved ones, as the festival's 38th edition was underway. For the first time in 38 years he had been too ill to attend the Saturday opening, yet managing director Delphine Lelu told AFP he had prepared the edition from A to Z.

He was born in Paris on October 3, 1956. As a child he loved magic tricks. An aunt who was editor-in-chief of La Vie catholique let him experiment in the magazine darkroom, teaching him chemicals and the craft of making pictures. He briefly studied medicine, then moved into journalism and photography. He contributed to Photo-Reporter, Le Photographe, and Photo-Revue, shot assignments for Sipa Press, and served as editor-in-chief of Photo Magazine (widely dated 1985-1987; Le Journal des Arts notes from 1984). Judging his own photographs harshly, he soon decided his gift was championing other people's images. In 1988 he became agent for photographer Dominique Issermann. In 1989 he helped Yann Arthus-Bertrand with the 3 Jours en France project for photography's 150th anniversary.

That same year, answering a Perpignan call for a late-season cultural event and backed by Paris Match editor Roger Thérond (with Michel Decron of Photo also cited in founding accounts), he launched Visa pour l'Image. The formula was set early: free exhibitions across the city, evening projections, and a professional week where photographers, agencies, editors, and picture desks meet. The first edition accredited about 123 professionals from two countries. Nearly forty years later the festival draws more than 220,000 visitors a year and awards on the order of €150,000 in prizes. Leroy's mantra, restated in his final book, was discovering young photographers, confirming recognized ones, and rediscovering historic work. He put Paul Fusco's Funeral Train back into circulation (2000), showed David Douglas Duncan's Korean War photographs (2008), and midwifed careers remembered in obituaries from Alexandra Boulat and Stanley Greene to Rémi Ochlik, Guillaume Herbaut, Laurent Van der Stockt, and many others.

He was outspoken, tall, hat-wearing, sometimes volcanic at the Campo Santo microphone, and allergic to empty talk of objectivity. He preferred honesty and images coming from the field, not from social media; images made by humans, not by AI. For the 2026 edition, themed around reality fighting back, his editorial used a fake AI image of Nicolás Maduro to warn against fabricated pictures while arguing that verified journalism might become more valuable, not less, as AI models need trustworthy data. He was named to the Conseil supérieur de la photographie in 2006, bought and chaired Images-Évidence in July 2009, and briefly directed the Arche du photojournalisme at La Défense (2017) before leaving in 2018 over commercial constraints. Honours include Chevalier des Arts et Lettres, Chevalier de l'Ordre national du Mérite (decree November 15, 2004), and Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (decree April 10, 2009).

France Inter reported that he had no children and called the festival his bébé. No spouse's name was made public in main obituaries. His last book with Isabelle Fougère, Le devoir de regarder: Histoires et réflexions sur le photojournalisme (MkF), closed with a letter to young photojournalists about sense before shutter. The Élysée, culture minister Catherine Pégard, AFP, Reza, Claudia Rahola, Jean-Pierre and Éliane Laffont, Axelle de Russé, Pascal Maitre, and the Rencontres d'Arles paid tribute. France Inter stated he will be buried Monday at 15:30 at Père Lachaise, without flowers (September 7, 2026, as of the September 4, 2026 broadcast). The 38th edition continues in Perpignan through September 13, 2026, under Delphine Lelu.