“Finding myself there seemed totally impossible to me at first. My wife said to me: “Ah, that suits you well, nine months ago you were trying to convince the French that you had to be legit and you find yourself in this crazy show.” » Jean Lassalle, admits, he did not really know where he was setting foot when he arrived, in the middle of winter, on the set of traitors at the castle of Val (Cantal). The politician, 3% in the last presidential election and now in the cast of season 2 of the M6 game launched this Wednesday at 9:10 p.m., ended up learning the rules on the job.
Among the 18 personalities participating in the festivities for the benefit of associations, three were designated as “traitors”. Their mission is to eliminate each night, after a meeting, one of the “loyal” who will leave the place without a goodbye. The loyal ones must unmask the traitors by trusting their intuition and make the right choice during the vote around the round table deciding on the “banishment” of one of the players.
“The cogitation was intense”
The lexical field of betrayal and exclusion is very frequently used and this is disturbing. Impossible to completely trust anyone, even the closest ones. Content creator Tibo InShape says he “hesitated” to participate with his partner Juju Fitcats. “Our relationship was going well, we had just gotten engaged. Several times we said to ourselves: “What have we gotten ourselves into?”, he says. His half confirms: “Before the game, the terms don’t resonate too much, ‘traitor’, ‘loyal’… Once you’re immersed in it, everything makes sense and the words start to become very heavy. »
“It’s a real experience, exciting, but very tense, supports the philosopher Vincent Cespedes. The thinking was intense. “The one who slain reality TV twenty years ago in his essay I loft you confides to having “experienced a freakout” on the spot. “When you find yourself alone with yourself, with the demons that it awakens…”, he continues, leaving his sentence hanging.
“It’s very stressful psychologically, also believes chef Norbert Tarayre. We get attached in offwe must resume in [lorsque les caméras tournent]. Some attitudes shocked me, it goes into the towers. »
“Humanly, we are completely undressed”
Host Eric Antoine admits that filming requires “a form of physical endurance for the candidates”. Registration takes place over ten days, the nights are short (“4 hours”) because, before going to bed, the personalities must debrief their day in the confessional, and, to top it off, the temperatures at this period of the year in Auvergne are freezing. So there are bound to be times “when it freaks out”. And the presenter finds it “delicious” because “it’s there that we come across the human, that we see that so and so is really nice or who the bastards are”, he smiles. On the viewer side, we must admit that we pour ourselves more popcorn and that each episode offers its weight of twists.
“It’s a destabilizing game. Humanly, we are completely undressed, ”slips Norbert Tarayre. The candidates of traitors would they be that vulnerable? “The production was admirable from start to finish. They were aware that it was not just a futile game, ”reassures Vincent Cespedes, who obviously took things very seriously.
The producer Mathieu Chalvignac thus specifies that all the participants exchanged with a psychologist before, during and after the shooting “to find out what state of mind they are in, if they can face the lie or are capable of lying”. “I found it special, it was very personal questions, so before participating, it gave me another vision of the game, relates Krystofer, one of the emblematic candidates of Do not forget the lyrics. The psychologist explained to me that in season 1, people wanted to be traitors, but that it was not obvious for all those who were. »
“An unsuspected spirit of competition”
On site, when the cameras are off, the participants are constantly escorted by “nannies” ensuring that no discussion approaches what is happening in the game. It is therefore impossible to develop strategies or to make shares his assumptions about potential traitors with other candidates. “The” nannies “told us” no off “, confirms the ex-fencer and Minister of Sports Laura Flessel. We were constantly in quicksand.” “As they were asked to keep the information to themselves, during the day off, they were able to discuss with the psychologist, it allowed them to relieve the pressure”, informs producer David Warren.
Not everyone needed it. That day, Jean Lassalle rather changed his mind by watching the Blues crush the English at the Six Nations Tournament. Vincent Desagnat also lived the cool experience. “I was really into the game and had no problem with people thinking I was lying or betraying. I found it funny to see the strategies that were being built up”, confides the actor who still discovered “an unsuspected competitive spirit”.
“It’s like in life”
Quite the opposite of Kristofer: “The hardest thing for me was to distinguish the game from real life, not to personally take a vote against yourself. Vincent Cespedes goes further: “It’s human nature, this game. Everyone said: ‘It’s like in life.’ “Indeed, the show is tied around lies, double talk, declarations of infallible friendship, opportunistic approaches, scapegoats on which the majority is relentless…
“The round table is an allegory of our society: those who speak the best, who master public speaking, succeed in convincing others to eliminate a person, whether they are “guilty” or not, analyzes Eric Anthony. This worried me. The presidential elections were still in my memories and I said to myself: “This is so much what we are going through!” »
The advantage of traitors, the game is that it’s just entertainment and it doesn’t hurt anyone – apart from a few scratched egos. The wounds of pride are also quickly repaired: the eighteen participants, “traitors” or “loyal”, now exchange willingly all together on the WhatsApp group they have created.