Two French nationals were placed under a pretrial detention order on Monday, August 17 in Togo, where they had already been held for several weeks. On Tuesday, France’s Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs officially confirmed their arrest, which took place on July 27 in the north of the country.
The two men, identified by Franco-Beninese-Togolese journalist Emmanuelle Sodji, a correspondent for France 24 and TV5 Monde in West Africa, as Sébastien Perez-Pezzani and Gaël Mocaër, were described by the French Foreign Ministry simply as « directors » working for a French production company. According to several sources, that company is Tony Comiti, and the pair had been filming for the investigative series Les Routes de l’Impossible, broadcast on France Télévisions. Neither man is new to dangerous assignments. Perez-Pezzani had previously been arrested while filming in Venezuela, while Mocaër has covered Chad and Ukraine for other major reporting programs.
According to the Togolese newspaper L’Alternative, which first reported the case, the two men were detained in the middle of last week, in late July, in northern Togo while working on their report. They were formally indicted on Monday, August 17, after being held by Togolese intelligence services. The precise grounds for the proceedings have not been detailed by Togolese authorities. Sodji reported that the charges appear to relate to the type of visa the two journalists used to enter the country, though neither Lomé nor Paris has issued an official statement on the exact nature of the charges.
Questioned by AFP, the French Foreign Ministry confirmed that the two men are the subject of a judicial investigation led by an investigating judge in Togo. It said the detainees have received three consular visits so far. The ministry stated that its services in both Paris and Lomé are fully mobilized to ensure their conditions of detention, their state of health and respect for their right to a defense are upheld. The French embassy and the detainee protection office in Paris say they remain in constant contact with the men’s lawyer, their employer and their families.
The case is not an isolated one. French journalist Thomas Dietrich was expelled from Togo in 2024 following a similar arrest while reporting for a French outlet. More recently, in June 2026, another French national, Steeve Rouyar, was arrested in Lomé amid protests against Togo’s new constitution before being released in late December 2025 under a presidential pardon. Some Togolese opposition outlets have suggested, without official confirmation from either government, a possible link between this arrest and the case of exiled Togolese investigative journalist Ferdinand Ayité. That claim should be treated with considerable caution in the absence of any official source supporting it.
As of now, no timeline has been announced for the next steps in the judicial proceedings against the two Frenchmen.