Claire Chazal's classy farewell

Another page has turned in broadcast journalism in France.

Sunday evening witnessed a classy farewell from, Claire Chazal, the woman who has anchored the lunchtime and evening weekend news on TF1 for the past 24 years.

Claire Chazal (screenshot, TF1 - her last news programme)

Chazal was unceremoniously "given the boot" after returning from her summer hols.

In much the same fashion as Patrick Poivre d'Arvor (PPDA) back in July 2008, Chazal was "thanked for her services" and given just a few weeks notice.

Indeed, PPDA (among many others) even Tweeted his support and admiration after Chazal's last broadcast, saying pointedly how she had shown "an elegance most definitely missing in her boss" Nonce Paolini.

PPDA Tweet

Her departure probably didn't come as much of a surprise. In fact, it has been on the cards for some time, especially after PPDA was shown the door.

They both came from a different era in terms of news broadcasting.

Falling audiences (ah yes - the news isn't really just about "news" now, is it? Ratings...and advertising revenue also count) and a desire from the Powers That Be to "rejuvenate" the channel's news team are probably the main factors leading to Chazal's rather fast dismissal.

She'll be replaced by her summer stand-in (and 20-year younger) Anne-Claire Coudray.

Chazal's "style",  deferential and somewhat staid, has come in for a fair amount of criticism over the years and the 58-year-old, no matter how popular she might be among the French, has often been perceived as "soft" on her studio guests.

The most recent example came four years ago when  the former International Monetary Fund boss, Dominique Strauss Kahn chose Chazal's evening news programme to declare his innocence and admit to only having made a "moral error" after alleged  rape charges against him in New York had been dropped.

Chazal, a close friend of DSK's then-wife, Anne Sinclair, didn't pursue any real line of journalistic questioning, allowing her "guest" to have his say.

And that was very much her "technique" over the years: one which quite possibly endeared her to the public but didn't sit particularly well with "real news" gatherers.

Chazal's final "goodbye" and a montage of some of her moments, used to pay tribute to her by her colleagues, were fittingly graceful.

She thanked viewers and those with whom she had worked, saluting the "professionalism of the TF1 editorial team"  saying that she left her post with "immense sadness" but wished her successor, Coudray, "as much enjoyment as she had had."




Claire Chazal's classy farewell - would you really have expected anything less?

"Suite 2806" treading the boards with DSK

Well not quite. The disgraced form head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, won't actually be taking to the stage, but his persona will be.

And it happens in a play due to open shortly at the Théâtre Daunou in the second arrondissement of the French capital.

"Any resemblance to what actually happened is purely coincidental," runs the blurb for the imaginatively entitled "Suite 2806" the scene, of course, of the infamous encounter at the Sofitel in New York between DSK and the chambermaid Nafissatou Diallos

"Suite 2806" (screenshot of poster for the play)

 Eric Debrosse and Jelle Saminnadin take on the roles of the ingeniously renamed protagonists "Daniel Weissberg" and "Evangeline" in the play written by Guillaume Landrot and directed by Philippe Hersen, who describes it as being "very elegantly and well written, focusing on power, subconcious deliberate mistakes and redemption."

Proving that it's pure "faction" the plot has...wait for it...Evangeline - who has studied modern literature - entering into "a real discussion" with the businessmen Weissberg!

Say no more.

'It examines the origins of the sexual addiction of my character without making any judgement," says Debrosse.

"And Evangeline comes across as a victim but also a strong woman."

Oh well. It'll be something to see in Paris on a cold November or December evening perhaps.

Maybe it's not surprising that the affair is being milked for all its worth - and more.

After all it at the time it made headlines not just in France but around the world and it surely changed the face of French politics, delivering a knockout blow to DSK's chances of running for president of this country.

Since then, there have been books, both fictional ones that have taken their "inspiration" from what went on in the room and "factual" biographies of Strauss-Kahn, the trial, and his long-suffering and deep-pocketed wife (from whom he's now separated) Anne Sinclair.

And what's the betting there'll be many more.

TV of course got in on the act pretty quickly with the US series "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" borrowing heavily from what reportedly happened in one of its episodes.

And let's not forget the big screen.

French director Abel Ferrara's plans to begin shooting a film inspired by DSK and his political sex scandals, starring Gérard Depardieu (a custom-made bit of casting in terms of physique?) in the main role with Isabelle Adjani as Sinclair might have been put on hold for the moment.

Lack of funding apparently.

But there is of course the x-rated version "DXK" made by Christophe Clark in 2011 which...actually you probably don't need it spelling out.

Watch the accompanying trailer if you feel so inclined, although you'll need to sign in and agree to the conditions before YouTube will allow you access.



The play "Suite 2806" opens at the Théâtre Daunou in Paris on November 21 and runs until the end of the year.

"Leave me alone," says Dominique Strauss-Kahn

Ah. We've all missed him, haven't we?

Who?

Dominique Strauss-Kahn of course.

Since his alleged "philandering" (to put in mildly) in that infamous Sofitel suite in New York back in May 2011, the former head of the International Monetary Fund has only given one interview.

That was with the clearly uncomfortable TF1 news anchor Claire Chazal in September last year when DSK gave a table-thumping performance while brandishing a document "proving" his innocence but also having the temerity to admit he had made a "moral error" - whatever that was supposed to mean.



Since then of course there have been further accusations, such as those of writer and journalist Tristane Banon and investigations into his involvement in hotel sex parties with prostitutes in the northern city of Lille.

His long-suffering and very deep-pocketed wife Anne Sinclair has flown the coop, and the man to whom France must be eternally grateful for the arrival of the gormlessly presidential normal one in office (François Hollande, in case you were wondering), has kept as low a profile as possible given the circumstances.

But now the man the French "affectionately" (really?) refer to as DSK is back - sort of - with an exclusive and all-revealing five-page interview in the weekly news magazine Le Point.

Actually it's not - revealing that is.

Much of what DSK actually tells the magazine has been heard or said before with the exception perhaps that, in almost Greta Garbo-style, DSK launches a plea for the media to leave him alone.

Reach for your handkerchieves everyone as you read the following (paraphrased) extract.

"I no longer play any sort of official public role. I'm not a candidate for anything and I have never been convicted either in this country or any other," he tells Le Point.

"Therefore there's really no reason why the media should be so interested in me and to such an extent it has become almost like a manhunt," he continues, disingenuously to say the least.

"I can no longer stand the fact that the media seems to have given itself the 'right' to violate my privacy in the way it has, just because there have been false allegations made against me and judicial investigations launched.

"I just want to be left alone!"

And yadda yadda yadda.

DSK is probably not the only one - that wishes he would be left alone, that is.

The less coverage, the better.

But just in case you can't get enough and want a great pre-bedtime read with your Horlicks, rush out now to the newsagents to secure your copy of this week's Le Point.

An impossible match? Female broadcast journalists and politicians, Audrey Pulvar

Being the wife or partner of a leading (male) politician in France is a minefield at the best of times.

But when the woman in question also happens to be a journalist working for either TV or radio, and she specialises is politics...well, it seems she's virtually guaranteed a hard time.

Audrey Pulvar has become the latest victim of the "oh you're the partner of a high-ranking politician so you can't possibly do your job properly" club.

Audrey Pulvar (screenshot "On n'est pas couché")

Pulvar is the partner of the newly-appointed industrial renewal minister Arnaud Montebourg and has had a permanent slot on the Saturday night talk show "On n'est pas couché" on France 2.

It's essentially an entertainment  programme in which Pulvar is one of two panellists  - along with Le Figaro journalist Natacha Polony - giving invited guests - often politicians, but not always - a grilling.

Pulvar and Polony act as a sort of Left-Right double team.

But there's a problem as far as the president of France Télévisions, Rémy Pflimlin, is concerned - certainly when it comes to Pulvar.

It's one that involves a potential conflict of interest and ethics: Pflimlin would prefer Pulvar to refrain from interviewing politicians, in effect rendering her role useless.

So Pulvar is leaving the show and not without a certain irony and bitterness as expressed in a Tweet.

"Thank you to everyone," she wrote. "I've no doubt now that the profession of journalism has been rehabilitated and the media has once again become objective."

In a real sense Pulvar surely has every right to carry a grudge because she seems to be paying the price for Montebourg's political career.

She has already had to give up her weekday morning programme on France Inter radio.

And last year, when Montebourg declared himself a candidate in the Socialist party primary, the all-news channel I>Télé cancelled Pulvar's political show.

Of course down the years, Pulvar is far from being the only female broadcast journalist in France forced to put her career on hold because of a perceived conflict of interest.

Back in 1997 Anne Sinclair stepped down from presenting the weekly news and political magazine "7 sur 7" on TF1 when her husband, Dominique Strauss-Kahn (as if you needed telling that) became finance minister.

In 2007 it was the turn of France 2's weekend anchor Béatrice Schönberg to call it a day. The presidential elections hadn't yet taken place but her husband, Jean-Louis Borloo, was one of the names being touted as a possible future prime minister under a Nicolas Sarkozy-presidency.

In fact the year wasn't a good one for female broadcast journalists because another one, Marie Drucker, was put on extended leave from her job as an anchor on France 3.

The reason? Well at the time she was the partner of François Baroin, the man who was appointed interior minister after Sarkozy launched his presidential campaign and was required to resign.

Drucker and Baroin didn't last and she was re-instated and eventually moved over to France 2.

Christine Ockrent was perhaps the "exception that proved the rule" in retaining her job at France 3 and being allowed to present a political magazine even when her other half, Bernard Kouchner accepted the post of foreign minister.

But often women journalists working for TV and radio and who are married to, or living with, prominent politicians seem to have their professional objectivity questioned.

That doesn't necessarily seem to be the case over in print journalism - at least not as long as they steer clear of politics.

François Hollande's partner, Valérie Trierweiler has managed to keep her post at Paris Match where she's a political journalist, although her first piece since becoming France's first lady narrowly avoids controversy by focussing on a woman - Eleanor Roosevelt - with whom any possible resemblance is "purely coincidental" according to L'Express.

A portent of things to come perhaps from Trierweiler.

And over at the financial daily Les Échos, Valérie de Senneville, the wife of the newly-appointed employment minister Michel Sapin, is hoping to be able to hold on to her job.

Les Guignols "candidates" to replace Laurence Ferrari as TF1 news anchor

So TF1 prime time news anchor bid farwell to viewers on Thursday evening.

It was, as expected, a dignified and moving end.




And now the real speculation about her permanent replacement can begin in earnest.

Cue those wickedly satirical Les Guignols de l'info over on Canal +

They provided a few of their own suggestions as to who could take over by showing some of the "candidates in action" during an audition.

First up for Les Guignols was Claire Chazal, TF1's weekend news anchor, followed by Nikos Aliagas the presenter, of among other thing, the French version of The Voice.

Nikos Aliagas (screenshot Les Guignols)

Next to give it a bash was Benjamin Castaldi, whose grandmother, the wonderful actress the late Simone Signoret would surely be horrified that her grandson has signed up for yet another season of hosting trashy TV reality.

But the funniest was surely left until the end as Nicolas Sarkozy gave his best with an off-camera voice interrupting to say how peculiar it was to have the former president auditioning.

"How come?" replies Sarkozy.

"I was editor in chief of TF1's news for five years. If I appearing in front of the camera I'll just be saying the same things won't I?"

Nicolas Sarkozy (screenshot Les Guignols)

More candidates appear later in the show including TF1's weekday lunchtime presenter Jean-Pierre Pernaut, controversial political journalist and writer Éric Zemmour and Anne Sinclair - along with (inevitably) her husband, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Have a great weekend.

Les Guignols de l'Info du 31/05/12 - Qui pour remplacer Ferrari ?

Anne Sinclair named France's Woman of the Year - really?

A poll carried out for Terrafemina, an online women's magazine, has named Anne Sinclair as France's Woman of the Year.

Sinclair was a "symbol of courage and tenacity in face of the legal difficulties of her husband," the magazine said in announcing the results of the poll carried out on its behalf by CSA (Conseils-Sondages-Analyses).

No kidding.

It would be hard for anyone tuned in to the news in the weeks following the arrest of her husband, former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of course, not to have been impressed by her stoicism (and money) as she "stood by her man".

But French Woman of the Year?

Certainly not as far as the Green's presidential candidate Eva Joly is concerned.

"I find it sad," Joly said in an interview on news channel i>Télé.

"It reflects a view of life and gender relations that's very, very old-fashioned," she continued.

"I find it quite shocking, unbelievable even, that her popularity can be greater than that of a prominent politician such as Christine Lagarde," she added.

Lagarde, France's former finance minister and DSK's successor at the IMF came second in the poll.

Deserved or just too much Tammy Wynette about the outcome? What do you think?

The poll was conducted by telephone on December 6/7.

A representative sample of 1,005 people aged 18 and over were asked to choose from a list of 10 names, two women they considered had made the biggest impact in 2011.

Here, in a screenshot from the survey, are the overall results.

screenshot from PDF file from CSA survey

You can download the full report in PDF format from the CSA website.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn and that "interview"

So, the former head of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) has "spoken" to the French in a mind-numbingly tedious and staged interview on prime time news here.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn (screenshot from TF1 interview)

The subject of course, as if you needed telling, was what really happened in room 2806 of the Sofitel in New York on May 15.

Except what viewers were treated to was anything but an insight.

Instead it was a carefully orchestrated affair with DSK claiming he had been proven innocent, admitting to a "moral failing" (so that's the new, politically correct term for any indecent behaviour) and almost terrifying poor Claire Chazal, the journalist faced with the onerous task of not asking anything that might embarrass.

Humility, sincerity and honesty were hardly at the top of DSK's agenda as he twisted the facts to suit his proclaimed "innocence".

He brandished the report of the New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance junior, claiming that it not only proved his innocence but also showed that Nafissatou Diallo had lied throughout, an inaccuracy in interpretation TF1 was quick to point out in the following night's prime time news, presented by Laurance Ferrari, a journalist who might just have given DSK more of a grilling had she been allowed the "honour" of interviewing him.

http://videos.tf1.fr/jt-20h/que-contient-au-juste-le-rapport-du-procureur-brandi-par-dsk-6716434.html

But Ferrari wasn't the one who had been chosen. Rather it was Chazal, a women with decades of experience, an anchor of TF1's lunchtime and evening news at the weekend and reportedly a friend of DSK's wife Anne Sinclair (herself a former television journalist).

The 54-year-old was clearly frustrated at the limits that had so obviously been given to her and the whole "interview" proved to be nothing more than a charade.

Diallo had lied...she was also, just like the French writer and journalist Tristane Banon, who accused DSK of trying to assault her in 2003, a troubled woman... the weekly news magazine L'Express was nothing but a tabloid....the US justice system had frightened and humiliated him even before he had been able to proclaim his innocence...and on and on it went.

Great television though - well in terms of ratings - as it pulled in around 13 million viewers.

If you want to watch the whole "performance" in its original French, then sit back, listen and "Watch with Mother" to all 23 minutes and 47 seconds worth.


Bon courage.


div>

L'interview de DSK au 20h : l'intégrale

DSK and the "Yes we Kahn" tee shirt - a hint for 2012?

Will Dominique Strauss-Kahn throw his hat into the ring for the Socialist party primary to become its official candidate in France's 2012 presidential election?

He says he has made his decision but is keeping it to himself for the moment - just as he has done during months of relentless media speculation both at home and abroad.

(screenshot from Canal + documentary)

At the weekend Canal +, France's premium pay television channel aired a documentary dedicated entirely to DSK as he's more popularly known.

"Un an avec DSK - au coeur du FMI" wasn't just a straightforward interview but, as its name suggests an almost hour-long portrait of the man following him around in his role as head of the International Monetary Fund.

It wasn't encrypted as most of the channel's programmes are, so anyone who wanted to could watch.

It was an intriguing documentary which illustrated just how much interest there is from journalists around the world about DSK's intentions for 2012, while at the same time underlining his inability to be able to give any sort of straight answer as it would contravene IMF regulations forbidding political comment.

DSK also came across as a man busy cultivating an image that certainly doesn't do his stature as a heavyweight on the international political scene any harm whatsoever.

There were also a couple of moments that were surely quite telling about DSK's continual cat-and-mouse game with the media as the inevitable questions about his intentions for 2012 were asked - time and time again.

The first came in July 2010 during a summit in South Korea when the boss of one of the country's largest newspapers quite simply asked him, "So you're going to run to be president?"

"Yes," came the immediate response and a pause for effect.

"I'm going to run...to see your president (Lee Myung-bak) tomorrow morning - I hope."

And the second tease came in September 2010 when DSK and his wife Anne Sinclair, attended the IMF's annual football tournament in the suburbs of Washington.

They, and others, were wearing tee shirts with his image and the slogan "Yes we Kahn" printed on the back.

When the journalist pointed out the obvious similarity to the one used by Barack Obama in 2008 and suggested that it could be construed like a declaration of sorts, DSK laughed it off.

"The tee shirts had been made without my knowledge and are in support of the team representing my office, he said.

And when asked by the journalist what he thought of the (tee shirt's) slogan DSK replied, "It has been used once. It can't be used again."

Whatever your thoughts on the chances of any Socialist candidate winning in 2012, DSK, has until mid July to announce whether he's going to run in the party's primary.

That's when nominations close.

In the meantime, as the weekly news magazine L'Express writes, DSK appears to be the master at playing the political game to its full.

"He says just enough to remain within the constraints placed upon him by the IMF while at the same time not too little that the French would forget him."

The debate on French national identity and the case of Anne Sinclair

France is in the throes of a debate on national identity.

At least some sectors of society and in particular politicians from the right are, with the agenda being led by the minister of immigration, Eric Besson, who opened the whole discussion at the beginning of November last year to find out how best "to reaffirm the values of identity and the pride of being French."

Others - and not just those from the left of the political spectrum - are refusing to get involved, going no further than questioning the need to debate the issue in the first place.

Whatever the case, here's a tale that reveals how difficult it can be at times for even those in supposedly high places to prove their "Frenchness" in the face of a bureaucracy that is - to say the least - unhelpful.

It comes from Anne Sinclair - a woman who could....just could....be a future first lady of this country.

She's a pretty well-known figure in France having created and presented the weekly news and political programme 7/7 in the 1980s.

A woman with a proven track record in television, radio and print journalism, Sinclair was, as she says on her blog, even asked by some to embody the national symbol of Marianne.

You can't get much more "French" than that.

Oh yes, and she's also married to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the current head of the International Monetary Fund and potential Socialist party frontrunner for the 2012 French presidential elections.

So what exactly has the 61-year-old fuming and adding her two cents worth to the debate on national identity?

Well it all has to do with the renewal of her national identity card (couldn't get more pertinent to the debate really than that) a laminated plastic card valid for 10 years and used in France to confirm a person's identity when paying by cheque for example or opening a bank account.

It can also be used as a passport when travelling within the European Union and certain other countries.

So it is really a sign of being French if you will, as to hold one you have to have proven your eligibility in the first place.

And this is where it can get difficult - or at least it did for Sinclair.

On her blog Sinclair recounts how her existing card was actually valid until 2017 (remember that) but she wanted it amended so that it would show her Parisian change of address.

So she made her way to the local Préfecture de Police armed with (what she thought were) the necessary papers and, while she waited a couple of hours, could hear the often less-than-friendly grilling others were being given in having to prove their eligibility.

When it came to her turn, as she had been born abroad (in New York) she was asked not only if both her parents were French but also whether her grandparents were as well.

Even though Sinclair pointed out that on her birth certificate it clearly stated that both her mother and father were born in Paris (the capital of France that is) and she already held a valid identity card, the clerk dealing with her request proved "intractable in demanding that since 2009, I needed an additional document, a birth certificate of my father or my mother, which would prove my Frenchness."

Sinclair left and returned last week with the required documents, including this time a copy of her mother's birth certificate.

The welcome she had this time around was much warmer - more to do with the person behind the counter than the administrative regulations it would appear.

But it didn't change the response she received when questioning the need to "prove" that at least one set of her grandparents had been French.

It's a story the clerk had apparently heard dozens of times before from people Sinclair said had been "Less well off than me, with less time, a life more eventful or in cases where it was harder to obtain birth certificates of their parents! But that's the new law - the requirement for a 'double proof'", she was told.

"But why not a third, or a fourth," asked Sinclair. "How many generations back should I have to go to provide proof of citizenship which has never before been questioned."

Rhetorical questions to which the poor clerk was unable to respond other than by saying that it was the law.

All of which leads Sinclair to conclude in her blog that even if it could be perceived as administration simply doing its work given the change in the law, "It's not an issue of bureaucratic red tape but a mindset that is harmful to the identity of France."