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?

Valérie Trierweiler's "non-interview" interview on France 3 TV

It was surely the most peculiar of interviews; at the same time both surrealist and seemingly beamed in from a parallel universe.

Valérie Trierweiler's first appearance on French TV since her bust-up with the French president, François Hollande, THAT ("political memoire") book and promotional tour abroad and, even more recently, the slap she gave the 33-year-old  centre-right Union pour un mouvement populaire (Union for a popular movement) politician Mohamed Rizki, when he (some might say somewhat insolently) asked her in the street, "How is François?"

Valérie Trierweiler (screenshot 19-20 France 3 Ile-de-France news)

Yet the presenter of the 19-20 France 3 Ile-de-France news, Jean-Noël Mirande, declined to pose any questions relating to any of those matters during the interviews because...well, journalistically-speaking apparently they weren't interesting enough or relevant as to why she had agreed to be interviewed in the first place.

Say what?

All right so the cause Trierweiler was "promoting" (not her own in this case) was without doubt virtuous - the work of the Secours populaire français, an association "fighting against poverty and exclusion in France and throughout the World".

But this is a woman who has made the headlines over the past year or so for all the wrong (or right - depending on your perspective) reasons.

And yet Mirande declined to ask one single question during the main body of the interview because he didn't want to detract from the serious nature of the Secours populaire's work.

Oh well, maybe he had gone to a different school of journalism to that of his colleagues.

The one which panders to the guest, doesn't ask the "burning questions" no matter how tasteless they might be and decides that news is set, not by events, but by avoiding any mention of them.

And just to ensure that viewers had completely understood why, he handed Trierweiler the most servile of questions at the end, when he broached the slapping incident by asking how she dealt with controversies whenever her name was brought up.

"It's difficult because a non event becomes a headline. And at the same time there are some serious things happening in the world," she replied.

"I just don't understand how such a fuss can be made out of something that is so inconsequential."

To which Mirande responded, in true probing style, "And that's the reason we decided not to talk about those subjects. But I wouldn't have been forgiven if I hadn't tried."



Valérie Trierweiler's truly absurd return to the French media spotlight as France 3 blows its "scoop".

French TV's "double take" interview on Opération Pièces Jaunes

It can be hard reporting on an event that happens annually and, at the same time, finding something new to say.

That clearly though didn't seem to be a thought running through the mind of TF1's prime time news anchor Gilles Bouleau recently as he interviewed France's former, former first lady Bernadette Chirac.

Gilles Bouleau (screenshot from Le Petit Journal report)

The woman with the impossible "hair don't" was invited into the studio in her capacity as president of la Fondation Hôpitaux de Paris – Hôpitaux de France which, every year, organises Opération Pieces Jaunes to collect that unwanted small change we all have in our wallets, purses or pockets, to help children in French hospitals.

Bernadette Chirac (screenshot from Le Petit Journal report)

Anyway there was Chirac, in the studio with ageing French rocker Johnny Hallyday sitting beside her and Bouleau clearly determined to take a less than original approach to the questions he posed.

In fact his style and, more importantly, content bore a striking resemblance to the interview he conducted at around the same time last year.

Virtually word for word, Bouleau repeated the same questions, eliciting more or less the same sort of response.

Ah. That's real probing and exhaustive journalism at its best "copy and paste".

Take a listen to what those ever vigilant folk over at Le Petit Journal on Canal + put together (it's in French naturally but even if you don't understand a word you'll be able to hear that Bouleau asks more or less - maybe more "more" than "less" - the same questions 12 months apart).


20h de TF1: Gilles Bouleau se copie-colle par LeHuffPost

Perhaps the 51-year-old was taking too literally the words he uttered at one point that, "small change has been given a second life for almost 24/25 (2013/2014 interviews) years," in believing the same was true of his interview.

Bravo.

France's all-star international "Premier Drame"

It is, of course, currently France's Premier Drame: A soap opera or farce, if you like, of the very first order as far as the international media is concerned.

Francois Hollande's still (at the time of writing, he has yet to confirm or deny officially) "alleged" night time trysts with French actress Julie Gayet.

A story brought to you by that bastion of "investigative journalism", Closer magazine.

Remember, it's the weekly rag which also gave us the double page spreads of the Duchess of Cambridge's wobbly bits a couple of years ago.

The world's media awaits with the proverbial bated breath for Tuesday's annual news conference when Hollande is supposed to outline to some 500 or so accredited Elysée journalists, his plans for the economy, how to stimulate growth and tackle unemployment

Standing room only though and an atmosphere as "electric" as the conference in 2008  at which his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, answered questions, in his own manner, about his relationship with Carla Bruni.

Whatever Hollande says will likely be similarly under-reported internationally as the issue everyone it seems (outside of France) really wants him to address is the alleged affair with an actress very few had even heard of before last week.

Fantastic.

Julie Gayet (screenshot from interview in 2012)

Who will ask THE question?

How will Hollande respond?

Seemingly endless column inches and broadcast time have been devoted to such burning issues as the perceived damage to the international image of Hollande - and by association, France - and the hospitalisation of his partner, Valérie Trierweiler.

Heck, France 2 television even asked Hollande's former partner (and mother of their four children) Ségolène Royal on its lunchtime news on Sunday for her opinions.

Seggers refused to respond.

If it had happened to someone holding high office in the United States or the United Kingdom, we are told, he (or she) would have been forced to explain (!!!), apologise and/or even resign.

But thankfully France is neither as priggish as the US nor as obsessed as the UK about its politicians' so-called sex scandals.

Yes, Hollande's opponents are having a field day. He's easy pickings and it's trash journalism at its very best or worst, depending on how you view these things.

President "Normal" is just a little too so for some tastes. For others he's just as hypocritical as many of his predecessors in office in invoking the "privacy principal".

But, let's face it, the allegations are hardly new news, now are they?

They're just in the public domain for the first time.

The rumour had been circulating for the best part of last year.

But Closer, with its trademark long lens approach to capturing photos that'll really tell the story, broke the news that, when picked up by the more respectable media took on a life of its own.

And the race to discover and cover absolutely every angle even led Le Monde to suggest that Closer had been tipped off by some of Sarkozy's cronies about Hollande's movements.

Hooray. Closer and Le Monde in the same sentence with the former helping out the latter to pull in a few extra punters.

Visions of "That'll learn you for criticising my Bling Bling celebrity approach to being president and insisting you would do things differently," perhaps from Sarkozy as he prepares his comeback.

Whatever.

Frankly Hollande's love life wasn't particularly interesting - and it still isn't.

France has seen its leading politicians survive far worse "scandals" of course.

Most recently there was Dominique Strauss-Kahn Sofitel suite 2806 affair (soon to be brought to us as a film starring Gérard Depardieu) a real story of misconduct by a French political heavyweight because it involved alleged rape.

But Jacques Chirac's "There have been women I have loved a lot," admission that he was something of a philanderer?

Or François Mitterrand's recognition of the existence of his daughter Mazarine, by his long-time mistress Anne Pingeot?

They were stories that came and went but hardly "rocked the office of president" (well maybe they created a few waves at the time) and didn't define Chirac and Mitterrand's time in office.

Certainly Hollande seems to have been less than prudent in his behaviour. And one could question his morals and more perhaps.

There are serious questions of safety at the idea of the head of state "scootering" around the streets of Paris in the middle of the night with only the bare minumum of security.

But heck. It's just an alleged affair, exposed by a celebrity magazine.

Here's hoping that the headlines after Tuesday's news conference concentrate on the things that really matter such as how Hollande proposes to relaunch the French economy and live up to his election campaign of cutting unemployment.

Fat chance!