AFP file picture | The reporter was arrested while reporting in Gaziantep, near the Syrian border.

A French journalist detained three days ago in southeastern Turkey near the Syrian border is to be expelled, his employer, online media Les Jours, said Sunday.

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"We have received confirmation that the expulsion of our journalist is under way," Les Jours said on Twitter.

Olivier Bertrand was detained Friday in Gaziantep province, where he was gathering information for a series of stories on post-coup Turkey.

Turkish news agency Anadolu said earlier Sunday that he was being held in the northwest and would likely be expelled in the evening.

It said he had been detained for failing to request proper accreditation, but it also described him as writing articles "favourable" to those allegedly behind a failed July coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Demanding Bertrand's immediate release, France's foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on Sunday said his detention was "deeply shocking, unacceptable".

His arrest came the same day that Turkey detained the board chairman of opposition daily Cumhuriyet, which has faced an intensifying crackdown since the failed coup.

(AFP)

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