What to remember from the French TV year? Rather than establishing a ranking of audience successes and flops over the past months, 20 minutes preferred to select ten images and sequences, whether solemn or futile, political or entertaining… Retrospective.
The unexpected “Hell” at 8 p.m.
Sunday January 9, Anne-Claire Coudray receives Stromae at 8 p.m. on TF1. The questions follow one another, until this one: “In your songs, you also talk a lot about loneliness. Did music help you free yourself from it? Musical notes start to sound and the Belgian artist begins to sing his new song, Hell. The sequence shot is as unexpected as it is overwhelming. Some 7.2 million people are watching this real TV moment live. In the days that will follow, we will become aware of the impact of this text in which Stromae speaks of his “suicidal troubles”. The singer set the tone for a year where a large number of personalities spoke about their mental health. Anne-Claire Coudray, she declared to 20 minutes that it was the “highest moment” of her interviewing career.
The abandonment of Etienne in “Beijing Express”
On February 24, Etienne, who made the faithful of Beijing Express ended up making them scream. The Antibes doctor announces at the end of the third episode broadcast on M6 that he is giving up. His decision condemns his partner, Vanessa, to leave the game as well. On social networks, the selfishness of the fifties is vilified, and the fate reserved for his partner deplored. Vanessa, however, does not hold it against him. “What good would it do me except to hurt myself and him?” He is very endearing. I had a very funny adventure thanks to him. It would have been a shame to get confused,” she confides to 20 minutes. Etienne was quite a character, a tuft of tousled hair and an unobtrusive chain of glasses, he himself admitted that he was not cut out for adventure. He also knew how to come up with shocking sentences that delighted the public.
Tribute to Jean-Pierre Pernaut
This March 2, Julien Arnaud takes the antenna of the 20 hours, the serious mine. “TF1 and all its staff are in mourning,” he said. A few hours earlier was announced the death of Jean-Pierre Pernaut, who succumbed to lung cancer at the age of 71. The first channel devotes a special edition to the one who has been the face and the voice of its 13 hours for more than thirty years. For forty minutes, the testimonies of TF1 journalists follow one another to salute the memory of their colleague; this information takes precedence over all the other news of the day. The hierarchy of news that evening is dictated by emotion. Some find it exaggerated, others, at the height of what Jean-Pierre Pernaut symbolized in the daily life of millions of French men and women.
Volodymyr Zelensky “appears” on the Croisette
May 17 is the opening ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival broadcast on France 2. Glamor and formal evening wear. When suddenly on a big screen appears Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian head of state is live from Kyiv, the capital of his country on which Russia declared war three months earlier. “Will the cinema stand up and talk about it? “, he asks the stilted assistance after having evoked the theater of Mariupol bombarded in March. This theater “which looks like the one where you are right now”… He is entitled to a standing ovation. During these few minutes of speech, the most brutal reality reminds a world preparing to celebrate fiction. An inevitably memorable oxymoron.
Valérie Pécresse’s message to Bertrand Chameroy
On June 24, “surprise” for Bertrand Chameroy in It’s up to you on France 5. The comedian discovers a video message addressed to him by Valérie Pécresse, presidential candidate under the label Les Républicains a few months earlier – which earned him a debt of up to 5 million euros. “I wanted (…) to sincerely thank you for your donation to my campaign,” she said, recalling
that she was an “inexhaustible source of inspiration” for Bertrand Chameroy.
“For your two-ball jokes, as you say, it was not abnormal that you paid me some royalties,” she said. Bertrand Chameroy had entrusted the Parisian sending him a donation: “I did the math: at the rate of forty two-ball valves during the campaign, I arrived at 80 euros. When taking stock of the past season, presenter Anne-Elisabeth Lemoine will tell 20 minutes “Bertrand didn’t spare her but – that’s his quality – he’s never mean. [Valérie Pécresse] replied intelligently, in a humorous tone, saying that she was not fooled: “You had fun with me and I am now having fun with you, but politics is still serious.” »
The “Body” of “Drag Race France”
July 28 on France.tv Slash and July 30 on France 2, the sixth episode of Drag Race France ended with a heartbreaking sequence. During the lip-synching number on Bodyfrom Yseult, supposed to decide between them, Lolita Banana and La Big Bertha delivered a performance of unequaled emotional intensity (or almost) among the dozens of versions of this drag queen competition launched around the world since 2009. A handful of minutes of a raw emotion where the two queens have made an art of their vulnerabilities. Lolita Banana, who had just told how much she suffered from feeling set apart by the other candidates, took off her wig and began to shave her hair, in tears. The jury facing him was also in tears. Big Bertha, who had confided in the cancer she overcame, ran up to her to support and comfort her, still continuing the number. It was strong.
The suspense of the “Traitors”
August 31, maximum tension at the final of the traitors. In this brilliant novelty of this TV year, David Douillet and Clémence Castel play the role of “traitors”, without the knowledge of their other playing partners, the “loyal ones”, whom they have betrayed and eliminated from episode to episode. . During the final round of table, Elsa Esnoult, who granted them absolute confidence, therefore falls from a very high point when she understands her mistake. “I had tears in my eyes, I was at the end of my life, I told myself that it was not possible”, confides the actress to 20 minutes after the episode aired. A communicative emotion, which brought 1.8 million viewers to all states. The moral is safe, David Douillet and Clémence Castel have chosen to share their gain of 32,250 euros with Elsa Esnoult. The money was donated to associations.
Magali Berdah’s tendonitis
September 11th, Further investigation, on France 2, looks at the business of influencers. At the end of the program, Tristan Waleckx interviews Magali Berdah face-to-face in the traditional red armchairs. The owner of Shauna Events ensures to use all the products of which she praises the merits on Instagram. The journalist then takes the example of a connected watch. Does she use it? ” Sure ! she replies. And when he asks her why she doesn’t have it on her wrist right now, she justifies herself: “I have tendonitis in my arm. “This improbable explanation does not escape social networks, which multiply jokes and mocking messages. Even brands and companies like Carrefour and Crédit Agricole are surfing on the trend to advertise. Shortly after, Magali Berdah declared that she wanted to say that connected watches are useful in case of tendonitis because they allow you not to carry the phone in your hand. OKAY…
First kiss at the tea dance
September 26, discomfort at the dancing tea. In the sixth episode of the seventeenth season of Love is in the meadow, Nathalie does not “jibulate”. She attends, impassive (or flabbergasted) the fiery first kiss exchanged between Jean (whom she hoped to seduce) and Laurence, the other suitor (with whom she continues to cling). The M6 cameraman has composed the perfect shot, with the lovebirds in the lead and, seated at the table, alone, in the background, in front of passion red curtains, the rejected bachelor. Love, its joys and its vicissitudes summed up in a single image. Alas, during the assessment, on November 14, we will learn that Jean and Laurence are no longer together, the latter having refused to leave Charente for Beaujolais. “It took me a little over a week to recover,” the farmer explained.
The insults of Cyril Hanouna
November 10, in Do not touch My TV, Cyril Hanouna is dying of insults Louis Boyard: “You are shit! The deputy of La France insoumise and ex-columnist of the show has just criticized Vincent Bolloré, owner of the Canal + group, to which belongs C8 which broadcasts the talk show. Treated as a “buffoon”, “moron” and “fucker”, Louis Boyard ends up leaving the set. The media regulator, Arcom (ex-CSA), will be contacted and will announce that a member of the Council of State will study the possibility of sanctioning the channel. Louis Boyard, he will file a complaint for “public insults”. Cyril Hanouna has since said he regrets his insulting remarks but has offered no apology. Television at its worst.