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AFP photographer Tim Sloan was on Thursday awarded the 10th Georges Bendrihem prize for the best photograph of a European political figure.
Sloan, an American, was awarded the 7,000 euro (8,800 dollar) prize by a Spanish jury for his 2005 photograph of US and Russian presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin taking a drive in Putin's 1956 Volga car.
The prize, which is awarded under the patronage of French President Jacques Chirac, was presented to Sloan by France's ambassador to Spain Claude Blanchemaison at a ceremony at Madrid's natural sciences museum as part of Spain's PhotoEspana festival.
The winning photograph was taken at a meeting between the two leaders which revealed strained diplomatic ties between Washington and Moscow, ahead of a Kremlin reception marking the 60th anniversary of the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany.
The second prize went to Italian photographer Alessandra Benedetti of the Corbis agency for a photograph of then Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
The third went to a French photographer for the Figaro newspaper, Jean-Christophe Marmara, for a photograph of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, considered political rivals, passing each other when jogging.
The annual prize was created in memory of an AFP photographer who was killed in October 1995 in a car accident in Tunisia when covering an official visit by Chirac.
It was first awarded in Paris before passing to Rome in 2004, Berlin in 2005, and Madrid in 2006. It will be awarded in Prague next year.
The Spanish jury, which made its decision in May, chose from among some 200 photographs of European political figures by 65 photographers, presented anonymously.
At the PhotoEspana festival AFP is also holding an exhibition through to the end of August on natural disasters entitled "Nature dans Tous ses Etats" ("Nature in All Its States").
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AFP 221700 GMT 06 06
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