After studying history, Barthe joined the Centre de formation des journalistes in Paris and graduated in 1996.
As a correspondent in Ramallah, the administrative capital of the Palestinian Authority, of the weekly L'Express and the daily Le Monde, he also collaborates with televisions and radios: RFI, RSR, RTBF, France Culture, TV5Monde and ITV.
After having two children with his wife, the Palestinian activist Muzna Shihabi, he came back to France, and then went to Lebanon in 2014, as a correspondent for Le Monde in the Middle East.
In 2021, he left Lebanon with his family and went to Paris, where he stopped writing as the Le Monde correspondent for the Middle East.
In May 2008, Benjamin Barthe was awarded the Prix Albert-Londres for his articles on the Gaza strip published in Le Monde and L'Express between April 2007 and January 2008.