1.3 million views.
The editorial of Patrick Cohen in the daily talk-show of France 5 "C à Vous", which is the subject of a dedicated video capsule on social networks, has never ceased to be a hit since its broadcast after the show last Monday night.
Entitled "Islamism: years of denial" this column looks back on the warning signs that should have awakened society before the attack which cost the life of Samuel Paty, professor of history and geography who showed caricatures of Muhammad in class during a course on freedom of expression.
Even if the context of national excitement obviously participates in the enthusiasm around this pastille, the former presenter of the morning of France Inter has not ceased to fascinate the crowds for several months.
Islamism: years of denial.
The editorial of #PatrickCohen in # Cà Vous ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/kU1i4oha5S
- C to you (@ cavousf5) October 19, 2020
The confinement and its new media environment had already offered a platform to the presenter and his informed editors.
On March 25, his column on the beginning of “giletjaunisation” of the health crisis and its 1.7 million views (on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube together) had already broken records.
Ditto for his outings against Dr Raoult.
The success of this new video does not go to the head of the one who is now regularly entitled to his own hashtag #PatrickCohen in the most trending topics on Twitter, the only network, moreover, that he consults.
The man very modestly relishes this success.
"I do not spend my life on the networks but I will be lying if I say that I do not look at the reactions that it arouses", confides Patrick Cohen, who saw that the counter of his editorial had risen in the towers.
“I don't look at reactions, I glance at quotes and covers.
But I don't do it every day, ”says the columnist.
"It is a great luxury to be little limited by time"
The recipe for this success ?
"Patrick Cohen's chronicles have the merit of offering an audience older than the average Internet user, more cultured, an elaborate and clear product, in which he acts as fact-checking", analyzes Arnaud Mercier, professor of communication at IFP.
"They stand out in contrast with approximate, very committed content, opinions, which contaminate social networks," adds this specialist in social networks.
Clearly, he found his audience.
“I am lucky to have a format that is not constrained, as with a classic TV chronicle.
It is a great luxury to be little limited by time but others than me do it very well, ”says the journalist once again.
On the side of 3e oeil productions, which produces the show, but also of France 5, we welcome the success of the format, but without officially communicating about it.
The attacks, sometimes anti-Semitic, which punctuate the comments are not really a subject for this old news truck.
“It touches me, but since I can't do anything about it, I'm pretty fatalistic.
I do not spend my days lamenting about it, "says Patrick Cohen, specifying that he" is reassured by thinking that it is a very small minority, which is trying to find visibility ".
"He's someone who needs to be in charge"
In any case, these "editorials", where his cool in the face of the news seems to seduce Internet users, have given the journalist, a time in check at Europe 1, in the spotlight.
Proof of this is the infernal rhythm journalist has been co-hosting a new cultural program on France 2 with Anne-Elisabeth Lemoine since Wednesday evening, "6 at home", on the occasion of the curfew imposed throughout France.
At France Télévisions, we deny any influence of this recent success in this choice.
"Confidence in Patrick has always existed," says one even on the side of the Esplanade Henri-de-France.
"I hope that it is at least as much the quality of my work as this small audience success that contributed to the fact that I was chosen" laughs "PatCo".
"For the show you are talking about, it's a show closer to entertainment, a show on which I will not bring an editorial vision" tempers the journalist immediately.
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Perfectionist, addicted to the job, of a "crazy requirement" ... There is no lack of qualifiers when we question the profession on the one who also presents every day Europe at noon since the start of the school year.
"It is not fame or feeding his ego that he is looking for, but he needs to have THE job to show that he does the job better than the others" comments a former colleague from France Inter.
And to add: “He needs to be in charge.
During these two years in the shadows, he was itching to regain control ”.
It is now done.