"LOSS OF CONFIDENCE"

Ironic, is it not...the one man in all of France trying to tell the truth is fired from his newspaper for it.

I know where my loss of confidence is directed...

Reporter Alain Hertoghe's book accused the French press of not being objective in its coverage of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. His newspaper fired him.

The book, ''La Guerre a Outrances'' (The War of Outrages), criticizes the French reporting for continually predicting the war would end badly for the U.S.-led coalition.

''Readers can't understand why the Americans won the war,'' Hertoghe said in a telephone interview. ''The French press wasn't neutral.''

The book, published Oct. 15, charges French reporters were more patriotic than journalistic and what was written amounted to disinformation.

It examines daily coverage by five major French dailies, including Hertoghe's own La Croix, in the three weeks from the first strikes on Baghdad on March 20 to April 9 when Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime fell.

"As soon as there were a couple of wounded, of dead, they were talking about Vietnam, Stalingrad,'' Hertoghe said.

In contrast, work by journalists traveling with U.S. troops indicated that ''the war was advancing well,'' he said.

Hertoghe, a 44-year-old Belgian, said reporters reflected the emotional high in France more than realities on the battlefield, becoming caught up in France's central role in leading the opposition to the war at the United Nations (news - web sites).

''The French public was so carried away,'' he said. The journalists, he wrote in the book, ''dreamed of an American defeat.''...

Over three weeks, the five papers carried 29 headlines condemning Saddam's dictatorship and 135 blaming Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites).

Hertoghe was fired on Dec.15 for a ''loss of confidence'' following publication of the book. La Croix, in a letter, cited four points, including damaging the newspaper's reputation, Hertoghe said.