Yann Barthès gives interviews in a dropper. It is not his favorite exercise. He says he doesn’t like to repeat himself, he feels like he’s rambling. In this new TV season, however, he agreed to speak exclusively with 20 minutes. We met him on Thursday afternoon, in the lodges of Day-to-day, when he had just shot a “pilot” of the show, a kind of rehearsal used by the teams to get back into the mix and allowing the final technical adjustments to be made.
While he will return to the air this Monday, at 6:25 pm, on TMC the host says he is “serene” and “in a very good state of mind”. “Happy” too, to find his band of columnists. “It is not at all the language of wood, we get along rather well on the set and outside the office, I think it shows on the air,” he insists.
This Monday you are starting your sixth season of “Quotidien”. You don’t feel tired?
It could go on forever, it’s a show that doesn’t have a recurring concept. The frame is recurrent, but what we put in it is not. There is no day that is like another. The period when things were most similar was during confinement where everything was frozen. There was, in fact, a feeling, which was not at all a weariness, but an impression of moving forward, like that, on a vacuum: we did not know what was happening, we lived the same thing as everyone else. world, than all the French. We worked differently, we were less numerous and, suddenly, we sailed a little on sight. We found ourselves on the plateau a few times with nothing. There was the view of Paris where no car was driving. We tried to tinker with subjects as much as we could, from a distance, without technique, because we couldn’t go out. It was that which was a little redundant, but we held the shock.
Since the start of the pandemic, the public around the plateau has disappeared. His return is not expected soon?
The health situation is not yet completely certain. We prefer not to bring the audience back for the moment, because we don’t want to take the risk of having to remove it again after two weeks. There is also a technical constraint: there is no longer a tier on the new plateau. But we decided that there could be audiences for exceptional events. For example, soon, we will receive Ed Sheeran. We are thinking of bringing in spectators, with health passes, with the same constraints as theaters and cinemas. It’s going to be weird because it’s been a year and a half since there has been applause on the set. There is a different atmosphere, a different sound.
New recruits will appear this season, including Anne Depétrini. What made you decide to call on her?
Anne Depétrini came as a guest at the end of the year. We found that what she said echoed what we thought and we liked the way she wrote. She was offered a weekly column on life in 2021. She accepted. The season may be a bit complicated so we wanted a return to everyday humor in Day-to-day, with Anne Depétrini, Alison [Wheeler] and Pablo Mira who returns. Nicolas Fresco, who works with Willy Papa [sur « Le Petit Q »], will write a column on influencers.
You spoke of a “complicated season”: humor is necessary to counterbalance this tense period?
In any case, there, it is tense. I hope it will be less, that it will be a serene presidential year (laughs). We have always tried to never lose humor despite what we have been through these last ten years, even in the most complicated moments. This season, I think we need it even more, so we added a little more.
Antoine Bristielle, director of the Observatory of Opinion of the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, will be writing a new column …
He has been to the plateau several times. He has a crazy talent, that of analyzing groups [sociaux] and when he explains, you say: “Obviously! Except you, you are unable to put words on it. He puts them on. He takes opinion polls, shares his feelings… It’s his job. Fortunately he is there to shed light on public opinion, on what the French think.
Will his columns be linked to public opinion in the context of the 2022 presidential election?
Not necessarily.
What will the “8:15 pm express” actually consist of?
This will be the new current meeting. Where, before, several big subjects were distributed in the various parts of the emission, one will henceforth make a newspaper in the manner of “19h30 Médias” of Julien Bellver. This sequence presented by Paul Gasnier will bring together all the forces of the editorial staff to talk about French and international news. We will also take a little distance by going to see in the archives what can shed light on what is happening now.
Are you planning to invite all presidential candidates?
For two years we have said to ourselves that we no longer want policies on the plateau. We did not receive any, apart from Olivier Véran and Jean-Michel Blanquer who had come to talk about the pandemic [Nicolas Sarkozy, invité en septembre dernier, a officiellement quitté la politique]. Political speech is everywhere, debates are everywhere. So for now it’s no, we don’t want a debate, no clash, we don’t want to create a buzz, we just want to work and interview people who enlighten us on something or defend a work, a film , for example, which we love. But no politics, there are too many spaces elsewhere, everyone is going to pounce on the politicians. We will let the campaign start, continue to decipher and we will see later.
Coming back to the tense period: in recent weeks, several journalists have been insulted and abused on the ground, especially in the context of demonstrations against the health pass. In June, a journalist from “Quotidien” lodged a complaint, accusing Francis Lalanne of having hit him during a mobilization in Avignon … Do you plan special devices to strengthen the security of the reporters of the show?
This has been the case for quite some time. The teams, on some shoots, leave with security. We are not the only ones. Sometimes we also leave without an identifiable microphone [sans logo de Quotidien]. But we continue to cover these events. We wondered what to do. I am thinking, for example, of what happened in Avignon in June or at the Trocadéro the week before, with anti-tax devices which mistreated our team. Do we stop going there? I think we must continue. I have 100% confidence in our teams. They are not going for the fight or the buzz. They are made up of journalists, of a curious nature. Should we leave small groups like that, among themselves, on social networks? Or should we know them? I think you have to know them. We have to show the phenomenon. At the Trocadéro, in May, the anti-tax vehicles were 200. We saw this summer that there were many more. It is thanks to the journalists on the spot that we discovered that a senator, Vincent Delahaye, number 2 of the Senate, was present at the demonstration and that he then had to explain himself.
Do these kinds of tensions influence the content of the show. In other words, for example, in the humorous pastilles, is there a form of self-censorship, an avoidance of sarcasm so as not to add fuel to the fire?
We start from the principle that we can laugh at everything. If we say to ourselves “We can’t laugh at this anymore”, that’s the beginning of the end. We can laugh at everything. Point.
Critics of the show blame it for its sarcastic tone, believe that some attacks are gratuitous, that mockery, pointing to tics or language elements of political figures, for example, discredit them. What do you say to them?
I think politicians are recovering well. They are the first to call us to come to the stage. And then humor in politics has always existed. We will continue to decipher and, in general, when we notice an element of language, there is always a meaning behind it. It’s never free or when it’s free, it’s good fun. We were sometimes heavy, I assume: who is not?
Last season, the invitation on the set of Patrick Poivre d’Arvor [alors accusé de viols et d’agressions sexuelles ; en juin, l’enquête portant sur huit plaintes a été classée sans suite pour prescription ou insuffisance de preuves] or Eugénie Bastié, for example, have caused a stir, especially on social networks – if we assume that they take the pulse of part of the public. Do you understand these reactions? If it had to be done again, would you invite them back?
You do well to put a nuance when you say that social networks reflect reality. I think it is not. For Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, we asked ourselves the question before inviting him [en mars] and we asked the question again afterwards. He wanted to speak and respond to the person complaining against him [d’autres plaintes ont été déposées ensuite] and we made the decision to ask him questions and answer the accusations, but I don’t necessarily have a good memory of it.
With Eugénie Bastié, what surprised was that “Quotidien” invited a journalist perceived as reactionary …
We did not have a debate. Eugenie Bastié is intelligent, she has her opinion and it went well. She didn’t leave raising her arms and moaning. It was interesting chatting with her.
What do you say to those who qualify “Quotidien” of emission of “Parisian bobos”?
(Amused) We’re all somebody’s sore and we’re all somebody’s handsome.
Finally, the last season of “Quotidien” was the most followed since the launch of the show, with an average of 1.9 million viewers. Are these improving results at the dawn of a new season a source of motivation or does it put pressure?
Regarding the hearings of last year, we must not forget that, from the moment when people have the obligation to be at home at 6 p.m. [avec le couvre-feu], there is a good chance that the audiences will increase. We are not fooled. We continued the program under these particular conditions and I think the difficulties were seen. But it created a link. The people I met this summer told me a lot: “You were there during the confinement, you were the ritual. »While we felt like we were only the five of us on set. Usually we are in a cellar [le studio est en sous-sol], we do not notice anything and we have the audience scores the next day. We didn’t realize that we were watched a lot. I have the impression that a bond has been created between viewers and us. I hope they will continue to trust us. The team is in good shape, wants to work, works all day and, when evening arrives, gives everything. Sometimes we are less good, sometimes we are better. In fact, this is the first time that we have had so much feedback. I hope this link will last because it was strong, concrete.