In this first episode of our series devoted to the “Janco phenomenon”, Xavier Yvon describes how this outstanding popularizer became the “guru” of the climate, with Emilie Lanez, senior reporter at L’Express.
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The team: Xavier Yvon (writing and presentation), Ambre Rosala (editing), Jules Krot (directing).
Credits: France Inter, Youtube channel of Jean-Marc Jancovici, Thinkerview
Music and design: Emmanuel Herschon/Studio Torrent
Image credits: Mehdi Fedouach/AFP
Logo: Anne-Laure Chapelain/Benjamin Chazal
How to listen to a podcast? Follow the leader.
Xavier Yvon: This podcast begins under a Christmas tree somewhere in France on December 25th…
Voice 1: Oh great! Jancovici’s comic strip, I just wanted to read it!
Xavier Yvon: Another tree, same gift in the neighboring house…
Voice 2: “The endless world, energy miracle and climatic drifts”, I don’t know, well…
Voice 3: You’ll see it’s super pedagogical, you’ll understand everything about global warming and our energy problems…
Xavier Yvon: And at the same time, a little further down the street…
Voice 4: The endless world, oh damn I already have it!
Xavier Yvon: You may have smiled when you heard this, because you must have received, offered or seen someone unboxing the best-selling book last year in France: The endless world today exceeds 600,000 copies sold… Under the pencil of the designer Christophe Blain, the engineer Jean-Marc Jancovici popularizes the energy and climate issues there, and makes himself the apostle of degrowth… A message that he has been repeating since years in university amphitheatres, in the media, with politicians and big bosses… and therefore now hundreds of thousands of French people, through this comic strip…
Why does “Janco”, as his fans call him, manage to talk about ecology to the French like no one before him? This is the question that Emilie Lanez, senior reporter at L’Express, decided to tackle with a long investigation of the character… and while preparing this podcast she gave me a first answer… I wrote it down , I read it to you:
“The success of Jean-Marc Jancovici is the mirror of a French ecology: to understand that it was necessary to change the consumption model, the French needed a Parisian engineer with many diplomas… He is the ecologist who resembles us for better and for worse.”
“The mirror of a French-style ecology”… To explain this to you, we thought we needed two episodes of La Loupe… From Fouquet’s to the Alps via Polytechnique, we’re going to tell you about the making of ” phenomenon” Jancovici… And in this story, you will notably come across… Nicolas Hulot, Luc Besson, and even… the devil.
For further
Jean-Marc Jancovici, the contradictions of an icon of ecology
Jean-Marc Jancovici: “The emergency? Train our decision-makers in basic energy concepts”
Matthieu Auzanneau (The Shift Project): “There will be no decarbonization without sobriety”