Bad luck for M 6! A few weeks after the interruption of the "Best pastry chef" because of cases of Covid-19 contracted by several members of the production, including one of the headliners of the competition, it is a new emblematic program of the chain which is confronted to the health crisis. FremantleMedia has just formalized a case of coronavirus among the teams of “France has an incredible talent”. And more precisely, among the four members of the jury (Marianne James, Eric Antoine, Hélène Ségara, Sugar Sammy).
Scheduled for this Tuesday evening, the first auditions, presented this season by Karine Le Marchand in place of David Ginola, are therefore postponed. “Everything is canceled for today, confirms this Tuesday an employee of the show. We are calling the spectators to tell them not to come. "In a statement, the production indicates that it will await" all the medical recommendations required to plan the resumption of filming as soon as possible. "
The show had taken all precautions
To limit the risks of contamination, the production had set up a strict sanitary system, detailed by Laurent Jullien, general director of productions of FremantleMedia, also chairman of the Committee of hygiene, safety and audiovisual working conditions. "We will test between 200 and 250 people before Tuesday," he explained to us last Friday. We opened a testing office for all our technical teams. We have hired a Covid referent within the program, responsible for ensuring that all health rules are respected. We have a doctor on call, who orders the tests. We are going well beyond what the protocol published on June 25th recommends ”.
Laurent Jullien and M 6 had also decided, at the last minute, that the public, whose gauge had already been reduced from 600 to 200 people, should remain masked for the duration of the show. “It is a bias, a precaution that we take with M 6, he stressed. But zero risk unfortunately does not exist. "
Karine Le Marchand redoubles her vigilance
In turn, the cancellation of the filming of "France has an incredible talent" could thwart Karine Le Marchand's first radio steps on RTL, scheduled for this Saturday. The station of the M 6 group in fact recruited her to co-host with Laurent Baffie a brand new program, “We do not respond to anything”, every Saturday morning. The host, who tested negative for Covid-19, redoubles his caution after being in contact with the member of the contaminated jury on the set.
Last March, at the height of the epidemic, M 6 also had to interrupt the filming of the 15th edition of "Beijing Express", which took place in East Africa, before reaching Dubai. The channel had formalized this stop in a Tweet: “Stop shooting #pekinExpress. The health of the pairs and the technical teams being the priority, the shooting of the next season is stopped. "
Friday, Laurent Jullien, general manager in charge of productions of FremantleMedia (which manufactures "France has an incredible talent" for M 6) detailed all the arrangements made to allow the shooting to take place this Tuesday, after days of meetings with its teams, and after finding out about the precautions taken by other producers abroad.