This week, viewers of the 8 p.m. news on TF1 and France 2 risk being surprised by new faces.
The 8 p.m. news has lost its luster since the emergence of the Internet and platforms. But there remains the “high mass” at the start of the evening for millions of French people every day. And the war between TF1 and France 2 to be at the top of the audiences remains fierce, with on one side Gilles Bouleau and Anne-Claire Coudray becoming the faces of the news on the front page and on the other Anne-Sophie Lapix and Laurent Delahousse on the second channel.
As during each holiday period, this quartet of stars will give way from Monday to understudies, also carefully chosen by the two information departments. But this year, the changes are likely to surprise as they are radical, since almost all faces change.
On the public channel, a real game of musical chairs has taken place in recent weeks. It all started with the transfer of Thomas Sotto, who presented Télématin and the weekend news, to the RTL morning show at the end of August. To replace it and therefore to supplement Laurent Delahousse at the weekend, France 2 recruited Julien Arnaud, until now a joker on 8 p.m. on TF1. But this transfer window also finally reshuffled the cards regarding the replacement of Anne-Sophie Lapix during the week.
According to Le Parisien, the performances of Karine Baste, Anne-Sophie Lapix’s joker since 2020, were indeed far from unanimous. The channel therefore finally decided to entrust this mission to Julien Arnaud. To replace Laurent Delahousse on the weekend, Sonia Chironi will be at the helm of the news during the holidays, as she had already done successfully at the end of August. Finally, at the helm of Télématin, Louise Ekland and Jean-Baptiste Marteau will act on an interim basis during the absences of Flavie Flament and Julien Arnaud. According to an expert on the matter cited by Le Parisien, the entire system will however not be fully in place until Christmas. Maya Lauqué could notably take over from Nathanaël de Rincquesen as the 1 p.m. joker after All Saints’ Day.
Julien Arnaud left TF1, the first channel has chosen an already known face to replace him since it is Jean-Baptiste Boursier who takes his place in Gilles Bouleau’s chair to present the 8 p.m. show on TF1 on weekdays during the holidays . The channel has in fact chosen the 48-year-old journalist, who until now worked on BFMTV, to be the new joker of its star presenter. The channel did not choose this new joker by chance since it would have had nine people take tests for its 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. news!
Jacques Legros and Audrey Crespo-Mara remain respectively the jokers of the 1 p.m. weekday and weekend news on TF1. Simple game of musical chairs or need to give a new lease of life for these flagship editions ? The two channels are in any case very big, especially since viewers will undoubtedly take a little time to get used to all these new faces…