The television of 2022 is not stingy with dystopias. This media genre allows viewers to project themselves into an invented or at least imagined future based on contemporary information. France 2 went through the same exercise in Special Envoy with France at 50°C in 2050 and 2050: My life without oil. In 2050, let’s open our eyes! broadcast on BFM TV on Monday November 14, the continuous news channel has imagined two scenarios of global warming in 28 years, thanks to journalists who have become salt and pepper in an approximate effect but leaving no doubt about the prospective nature of the show and where the faces of the news embodied their own roles.
But we have to head further north and go back to 2006 to find what television has done best in terms of media dystopia, to the point of upsetting half of a country’s citizens. With Bye bye Belgiuma program considering the separation of Belgium between Wallonia – French-speaking – and Flanders – Dutch-speaking -, the RTBF bent the game of the format. So much so that the show still marks the spirits when the program is about to blow out its 16th candle. “ Bye bye Belgium is one of our inspirations, says Myriam Alma, head of the reporting department Red line from BFMTV. This program influenced us in relation to the fear it caused at the time… This is why we put forward a banner indicating “anticipatory program” at the top of the screen. »
From a crazy idea to cutting programs to broadcast a fake news with real journalists. 20 minutes goes behind the scenes of this somewhat crazy project, which shook the borders of Belgium and raised awareness of the possibility of a Belgian-style split.
” The situation is serious “
Today is December 13, 2006 at 8:21 p.m. After the ephemeral mention “this is perhaps not a fiction”, the face of François De Brigode appears on the screens of millions of households connected to La Une, the first public channel in the country. Seriously, the one who looks like Belgian Laurent Delahousse announces: “Good evening everyone, the hour is serious. […] Flanders will unilaterally proclaim its independence. […] Clearly, Belgium as such would no longer exist. »
It is actually a vast television hoax that is broadcast on the small screen. The emblematic faces of RTBF information are associated with it. “I knew that everything we were going to present was something very lively in Flanders but that we couldn’t make the French-speaking public hear,” recalls Alain Gerlache, who was then director of television at the Belgian public audiovisual sector.
About a year earlier, he was approached by Philippe Dutilleul. The director of several subjects for the show Striptease then became All that (won’t give us the Congo back) offers him the project of a fake news, organized in the greatest discretion, announcing the independence of Flanders. The idea is original enough for it to be accepted by Jean-Paul Philippot, the general administrator of French-speaking Belgian public television. “We just refused to interrupt the JT because it’s sacred, that’s why the show came just after the newspaper,” says the former television director. If the budget is lacking initially for the project to materialize, the cancellation of the Grand Prix de Francorchamps will allow RTBF to benefit from the funds necessary to give birth to this unprecedented program.
“They are sinking the box”
In the greatest discretion and with the code name “Karine and Rebecca”, the teams of All that (won’t give us the Congo back) prepare their battle plan ensuring the utmost confidentiality. They still plan to disseminate clues in the program to make the public understand that it is a hoax.
In mid-November, Frédéric Gersdorff, then a political journalist, heard for the first time about Bye bye Belgium. Believing that the show could be an interesting start to the political debate, he accepted despite the refusal of the head of the channel’s political department. “It was absolute secrecy,” he rewinds. When I read the whole script and the role I played in the program, it seemed so far-fetched to me that I said to my wife leaving our apartment: “If it happens I’ll be back in 20 minutes .” Posted in front of the Royal Palace, he is responsible for reporting the false comings and goings of the country’s political figures at the king’s bedside. “To me, it seemed so clear that it was crazy and that no one was going to believe it, that the show was not going to pick up and be interrupted quickly to move on to the scheduled debate in stride. »
But from the first minutes, the red line established for the occasion in the premises of Reyers, where the headquarters of the RTBF is located, is assailed by calls from worried viewers. Kévin Dero, then production assistant, took his first steps at RTBF at that time and was scheduled for the next morning. “I expected the worst, I said to myself: ‘They are sinking the club the day I arrive, it was my dream to work there and this is how it will end’…”
“Reality has surpassed fiction”
On the set, the interventions of François De Brigode are supported by the analyzes of Alain Gerlache who acts as a political specialist. Reports, made a few days before the broadcast are also broadcast. We see political figures but also Belgian celebrities playing the game. Singer Annie Cordy, for example, reacts to the announcement of a separation between the north and the south of Belgium: “If it’s a joke, it’s unwelcome! […] Our motto is “Unity is strength well unity is Flanders, Brabant, Wallonia!” »
Another whimsical moment of the docu-fiction, a report made in Tervuren, between Brussels and Flanders. Travelers are forced to leave the Stib tram – the Brussels transport company – to take a De Lijn bus – the Flemish transport company – on the other side of the linguistic border. “This sequence was made without appearing a few days before the show. We see people changing means of transport without asking too many questions, it’s a real proof of Belgian surrealism, ”laughs Alain Gerlache again.
For his live from the Royal Palace, Frédéric Gersdorff was surrounded by a few actors mobilized for the occasion. Belgian flags in hand, they were responsible for demonstrating. “Where the situation became extremely special and unforgettable for me was when dozens of people came to demonstrate in earnest to save Belgium in front of the Royal Palace,” says the journalist. Real demonstrators then mingle with actors who have come to participate in the illusion of a country in crisis. While some actors defuse the subject, Frédéric continues the unfolding of the script, influenced by the events taking place around him. “Reality has truly surpassed fiction. At some point, I stopped reading the script to say what was really going on in front of me to keep the country together. »
“We want De Brigode’s head on a peak”
On set, the tension is also palpable. “François received the dispatches with the political reactions on the screen in front of him and we saw that the impact of the documentary was beyond what we could have imagined, recalls Alain Gerlache. We were convinced we’d be fired right after the show. I remember saying, “Listen, we have to stay dignified until the end, we’re on the Titanic, we keep playing.” »
The head of television at the time had however warned the Minister of the Interior just before his live appearance “so that he was aware but not enough in advance for him to be able to prevent us from doing so”. The telephone line is also assailed by a continuous flow of calls despite the appearance of a banner “this is a fiction” after 33 minutes of broadcasting. “Even the next day when I arrived, it didn’t stop ringing. Yet the RTBF had not planned any particular device, ”says Kévin Dero. Some viewers believe that someone close to them died when they learned of the independence of Flanders. “They then told me that it was a joke and that they had the right to have fun since the RTBF had done it”, laughs the one who is now a web journalist for the channel.
Other more lively reactions ask for “De Brigode’s head on a peak”. Kévin still remembers having exchanged with a presenter of the JT, then on vacation in France. “She told me that she had heard of the separation from Belgium and was asking me if she should interrupt her vacation,” he laughs again when faced with the absurdity of the situation. But on the sidelines of the calls, a petition is born on an Internet still in its infancy. Praising the initiative, many viewers show their support for the program. “While on the political side, it was firing red balls at RTBF, I think these people saved our place in the company”, analyzes Alain Gerlache.
Three years before 541 days without government
Internally, the dissemination of Bye bye Belgium will leave traces and divide the editorial staff. The next day, correspondents from television channels from all over the world flock to Boulevard Reyers. “I remember seeing my face in one of the World “, points out Frédéric Gersdorff. Alain Gerlache evokes for his part a “crisis meeting” organized in the office of Jean-Paul Philippot. “Some thought we had to apologize and I defended the idea that from the moment we had believed in the project, we had to defend it at all costs. All the protagonists nevertheless evoke a “unique” but difficult to reproduce experience at a time when the fight against disinformation and fake news is a daily battle. “Today, with social networks, it probably wouldn’t last five minutes. »
The history of the program is in any case glued to the memory of the Belgians. “It made it possible to show that the tension between Flemings and Walloons took the guts of the population”, notes Kévin Dero.
If the scenario never happened exactly as in the one imagined by the teams of All that (won’t give us the Congo back), Belgium will nevertheless spend 541 days without a government between 2010 and 2011. Three years after the broadcast of the program, tensions between Flemings and Walloons will have brought the country to a standstill for nearly two years. A dystopia in the form of a visionary electroshock which will therefore have made it possible to enter into the minds of Belgians that a potential separation from the country was perhaps not just a fiction.