It's a picture engraved in collective memory. Just say "Napalm girl" and the image of Kim Phuc, the child who was burned alive, crying and running naked down the road after a South Vietnamese bombing raid on the village of Trang Bang in 1972, instantly comes to mind.

But was this photograph, a symbol of the horrors of the Vietnam War, hiding a secret? While its authenticity is unquestioned, the documentary The Stringer, which premiered on Saturday, January 25, at the Sundance Film Festival in the United States, claims that the author is not Vietnamese photographer Nick Ut but a freelance photographer whose name has been kept secret for over 50 years.

The investigation has shaken the world of photojournalism to its core: The picture is iconic. It mobilized American opinion against the Vietnam War and launched the career of Ut, a young Vietnamese with an exemplary record. After losing two brothers in the war, he was hired as a teenager by the Associated Press (AP) to support his family and went on to become world-famous, winning numerous awards, including a Pulitzer prize. The victim, Kim Phuc, whom Le Monde met in 1997, has also become a symbol. Still suffering from her injuries, she was used by the Vietnamese regime for propaganda purposes before fleeing her country and becoming an ambassador for Unesco. How could this famous photo, on which so many books, articles and testimonials have been published, have concealed a deception?

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