The Summer Olympics will open in Paris on July 26, 2024 and Carole Gaessler is already starting the countdown on France 3. From this Monday, in “Aux jeux, citoyen! », the journalist will make us live the preparations and tell the daily life of those who are mobilizing to prepare for this event. Following a bad fall from his bike, sports journalist Alexandre Boyon will not be present on the first broadcasts but will later join Carole Gaessler on set and will also offer a sequence devoted to the history of the Olympic Games.
Each day, the former presenter of “19/20” will welcome two Olympic or Paralympic athletes to discuss their experiences: Stéphane Diagana, Laure Manaudou, Théo Curin, Céline Dumerc, Luc Abalo, Sarah Ourahmoune and Marie-José Pérec. A daily which allows Carole Gaessler to turn the page of the JT, after the stop of the national editions on France 3.
France Télévisions wants to bring the French people together around the 2024 Olympics. » does it contribute to it?
Already because we are there every day to start the adventure of the Olympics. We are going to try in our own way to be behind the scenes of the preparations and to have a very human angle in this follow-up. What interests us are all these French people, athletes or non-athletes, who in one way or another are already preparing. In “To the games, citizens! », we have a very strong meeting, a soap opera with very real characters. There will be athletes that we follow during their training but also in their family life. We will follow the sailors-firefighters of Marseille who secure the marina of the Marseille city where a dozen sailing events will take place. We will be with Amélie, a volunteer in Orléans, who is already beginning to welcome the Japanese judo delegation that has come to do reconnaissance. In all, we will follow about sixty people who will have their ups, their downs, their challenges to overcome. We’re going to be on a human level.
What is your goal with this meeting?
It’s that we’re starting to get attached to all these people and that we too, through them, enter into the adventure of the Games. The Olympics are always a highlight. There, what will be fabulous is that it will happen at home. The last time it happened was in 1924. You only experience this once in a lifetime!
What seduced you in this daily life?
Already the novelty. I do sport as an amateur, I watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games because I find that it’s always very aesthetic, culturally very interesting, joyful… But, obviously, it’s a universe that I don’t know. I don’t want to be a sports specialist, let it be said, and I don’t take the place of any sports journalist. I will try to stay with my curiosity as a generalist journalist, with my curiosity about the person behind the athlete, the human journeys, the individual adventures, etc. That’s what interests me. I am going to keep a form of freshness, candor, and say to myself: “Everyone, athletes and non-athletes, must be able to recognize themselves. I will make this show accessible to everyone. I will ask the questions that the general public asks.
This program comes at the right time for you after the end of “19/20”. What memory do you keep of your last JT?
Emotion. It was a page that was turned but, at the same time, there are others that are opening. So emotion, nostalgia which very quickly turned into joy because, around me, I had a lot of editorial journalists who were great. We celebrated thirteen great years. I told them “See you soon” in the sense that, there, I am living a long Olympic adventure and, tomorrow, I hope to live a new adventure with the editorial staff. I left them with a lot of desires still.
How did you experience this year during which you knew that at the end of the season the national editions of France 3 were canceled?
Finally, I belatedly realized that it was stopping. I am someone in the moment. Every morning, I got up and I didn’t say to myself: “D-320…” I had a news item and I wondered what we were going to do in the evening. I had a goal at 7:30 p.m., whatever happens, to be in good shape, to present the best possible newspaper. To fight nostalgia, my recipe has always been to be in the action. I’m in the action by what I’m going to do, because I’m going to talk about sport and I’m going to see other horizons. I realized late that we were coming to the last editions and I tried to live it as best as possible, to live great moments, even the last days, with the team.
After the JT and this daily newspaper that will take you until the summer of 2024, do you have other TV desires?
We always have them! I have plenty of them. I had no idea at all a little over a year ago that I would be doing “Aux jeux, citoyen! “. This job has many surprises in store. I also hope that people will see me a little differently in this daily life. For thirteen years of “19/20” and two years of “Soir 3”, I was seen in a somewhat fixed frame. The news is quite heavy, serious, the speaking time is very limited, you are filmed in a certain way. I just hope, sincerely, that people will discover another personality in me. I think that, in life, I’m much more talkative, more spontaneous, I’m a bit messy. I hope that we will see that side, much freer basically.