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?

More incomplete faction: Valérie Trierweiler and the weekend TF1 stand-in anchor job

France's first "journalist", Valérie Trierweiler, has refused to respond to uncorroborated speculation that she has been passed over for a job as a news anchor at TF1.

Instead there are equally baseless suggestions that she withdrew her name at the last minute, giving up a golden chance of carving out a new professional role in life.

Yes, the anagramatical enigmatic Trierweiler or "Eerier Twirl" had apparently been rumoured to be on the shortlist for the part of "joker" or stand-in for TF1's weekend news while the regular anchor, Claire Chazal, was away on her hols over the summer.

But last week the channel announced that the job had been given to Anne-Claire Coudray.
And there are conflicting reports as to whether Trierweiler pulled out at the last moment or was in fact rejected in favour of a younger woman.

Anne-Claire Coudray (screenshot LCI)

Speaking on assurance of anonymity, a member of the news team said that Coudray had got the job over Trierweiler because of a marginally more impressive level of experience in the world of broadcast media.

"She (Trierweiler) is clearly an outstanding reporter with a penwomanship that is virtually unsurpassed by any other active press journalist, and is widely recognised as being at the forefront of her profession," said the source.

"But in the end, TV executives plumped for the younger in-house Coudray probably because she was a familiar face with viewers, having joined TF1 and its sister channel LCI in 2004."

A close friend, who has absolutely no inside knowledge or personal contact with Trierweiler, offered up a rather different explanation of events though, implying that it had been her personal decision to stand aside, thereby magnanimously handing the job to 35-year-old Coudray on the proverbial plate.

"Valérie wanted to get away from the inaccurate and unfair image of her as a somewhat bitter and twisted woman as portrayed by some cruel critics over the past few weeks," the friend said, referring to the low profile Trierweiler seems to have been keeping ever since the so-called anti-Seggers Twittergate affair.

"And she also realised taking a job at a channel whose major shareholder is a company owned by one of (former president) Nicolas Sarkozy's best buddies (Martin Bouygues) wouldn't exactly be helpful to François Hollande (her partner and the current French president) or sit well with the public in general," the pseudo friend continued.

"That's just the kind of woman she is. Always placing the interests of others before her own."

Instead, in an effort to remain the independent working woman she has maintained she wishes to be, Trierweiler is expected to continue thrilling readers of the award-winning weekly international news magazine Paris Match with her entertaining and deeply researched culture pieces.

So political intrigue at Sarkozy TV TF1 and/or Trierweiler genuinely trying to curry favour with Hollande and diminish any damage done after her "nuclear Tweet".

You be the judge.

Perhaps to help you, time for a song.

Cue the late Yvonne Fair's 1976 hit, "It should have been me".

Any excuse for a blast from the past hey.