Caramel velvet sofa, pink armchairs, subdued lights, English moldings, piano and bar.
It is the revolution at Laurent Ruquier.
After 14 years in the media arena with "We are not lying", place at the "club" of "On est en direct", his new talk show this Saturday at 11:30 pm on France 2. The host wanted to shake up everything to "reinvent" itself.
He left his historic producer, Catherine Barma, created a new concept, changed atmosphere and credits.
And here he is, wandering around this Friday afternoon, cheerful and "impatient", from the black table to the piano area, from the bar to the music scene, in this chic and cozy atmosphere.
Face-to-face with Dupond-Moretti
"I would like this to be the place where artists, authors, intellectuals want to come on Saturday evening", he confides before starting the first rehearsals in this 400 square meter studio, next to the one by Yann Barthès.
Being live was her absolute condition, when Delphine Ernotte, the boss of France Télévisions, offered her in the spring to remain master of Saturday evenings.
"We are not lying" according to him paid dearly in audiences to be recorded on Thursday, 48 hours before the broadcast.
The dramatic news in Paris this Friday, after the stabbing attack near the former premises of Charlie Hebdo, comforts him.
Installed around the piano, where Catherine Ringer will sing on Saturday evening in homage to Juliette Gréco, the host and his small team swap the rehearsals for an impromptu meeting: they would like to invite four cartoonists for a debate on freedom of expression, to the place of the one planned on the government's sanitary screwdriver vis-à-vis the Covid-19.
They will have until the last minute on Saturday to decide.
The only certainty: the philosopher André Comte-Sponville will be around the table to shed light on the news.
But it is at the bar, with one of the stars of the government, the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti, that Laurent Ruquier will open the program for a political and intimate “face to face”.
Velvet sofas, subdued lights, the show is bathed in a cozy atmosphere./LP/ Jean-Baptiste Quentin
At the age of 57, the host of "Big Heads" on RTL finds the dress of interviewer, he who once sent to the front his columnists uncle gunslingers.
He wants to believe that his nocturnal talk-show, in this cozy setting, will unlock the word.
“At night, we're all different.
There is more freedom, more electricity ”judges the one who also intends to say what he thinks.
"I'm lucky not to be a journalist, I don't need to be neutral, I don't have a press card," he says.
He dreams of artists arriving on his stage when they leave the stage and remake the world around a drink, Michel Polac style.
Some objected to him that at this time, on Saturday evening, they were having dinner.
“Come after!
He told them.
"My career is more behind me than in front"
There will now be more guests - a dozen each week - starting with the actress and author Isabelle Carré, the ex of the "Unknowns" Bernard Campan or the troublemaker Kheiron.
Without champagne, but under the four large screens and seven cameras, the floodgates should fuse with the comedians Philippe Caverivière (one of the authors of Nicolas Canteloup), the young Belgian talent Kody Kim or Rosa Bursztein, between sketches and decryption of the news of the week.
Florence Foresti even planned a wink.
"Our desire is to put humor back on, people need to laugh, we want lightness and benevolence, it will not be the court as it could have been", slips Philippe Thuillier, the new producer with whom Laurent Ruquier has been working for three years on the “Grosses Têtes” TV evenings.
A hearing clause appears in the contract with France 2. We do not know the figure.
For his first, Ruquier would like in any case to approach the million.
But swear to think first "pleasure".
He's laughing.
"My career is more behind me than in front".