The scene can, at first glance, surprise: on the left of the screen, the youthful face of Hugo Travers, in a t-shirt on the set of BFMTV.
On the right, the Secretary of State for Youth, Sarah El Haïry, in a suit and in a duplex.
Between them, a screen scrolls through testimonies of young people recounting their distress, sentences taken from a video that the first made and which made the buzz, counting 6 million views in forty-eight hours on Instagram.
“Hugo Travers / Government: the debate” sums up the channel's blue banner.
And, seeing the agitation of the second, entangled in insignificant formulas, we quickly understand that the balance of power is far from being as unbalanced as it seems.
“I agree with you, Hugo”, repeats moreover several times Sarah El Haïry, short of arguments.
The sequence dates from February 2, but for Hugo Travers, it was a bit like any other day.
Accumulate hundreds of thousands of views on his videos is the daily life of this 23-year-old youtuber, whose HugoDécrypte channel has more than 1.1 million subscribers.
As for the face-to-face with politicians, this tall man of 1.92 m is now used to the exercise, which he practices with an almost confusing aplomb.
You have to see him challenge Marine Le Pen on fake news for ten minutes, live on France 2, in March 2019.
VIDEO. Who is Hugo Travers, the youtubeur who interviewed Macron?
A few weeks later, it is the President of the Republic in person, Emmanuel Macron, who invites himself directly into his program for an interview, on the eve of the Europeans.
Without this seeming to disturb the one who was then still a student at Sciences Po: "I do not feel too much pressure, I am lucky to have a little stressed temper," humbly evacuates the person concerned.
"My target audience is 15-25 year olds"
Is Hugo Travers the “Pujadas of the Net”, as he is sometimes called?
The comparison with the former presenter of the JT of France 2 hardly enchants him.
If the YouTuber also endeavors to present the news every evening, from Monday to Friday at 10 p.m., it does not address exactly the same audience.
“My target audience is 15-25 year olds,” he explains.
An audience that he wants to capture by appropriating new territories - the Internet and social networks - and thanks to a "really accessible" treatment, a mantra that he repeats over and over.
Understand, spare yourself the codes and ready-made formulas of "daddy journalism", considered a little too elitist: "When I hear that we continue to talk about Place Beauvau without specifying that it is about Ministry of the Interior… Sorry, but not all young people know!
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It was in 2015, when he noticed that his 15-year-old little sister did not follow the news, that the idea for this popularization channel came to him.
Which today offers a jumble of content - recorded or live - where we find educational formats, interviews with politicians, debates between young people and original reports: here, in immersion at the French championship of fast reading, or among the royalists, there, to meet millionaires of the lottery or an ex-inhabitant of North Korea.
Considered one of the main sources of information for 15-25 year olds, Hugo Travers has become, over the years, the spokesperson for a whole generation.
A status that attracts attention: "Hugo embodies a new profile, he speaks to people that the old media have lost", recognizes Bérengère Bonte, former editor of Europe 1, who had recruited him as a columnist for the 2018-2019 season.
Ironically, the YouTuber was caught up by the traditional channels he intends to overtake - also doing a few freelance work for LCI.
Everywhere, we praise its maturity and a great work force, as evidenced by its nightly SMS.
“It's much easier when you love what you do,” retorts this video game fan.
Because, as far back as he goes in his childhood memories in Ville-d'Avray, in the Hauts-de-Seine, he has always dreamed of journalism.
A virus transmitted by an English father, who took him to attend his community radio broadcasts for patients in a hospital in the Ile-de-France region.
Lucrative partnerships and an app in the works
Today, however, Hugo Travers would define himself more as a business leader, he who employs three employees - two journalists and an editor - within his HDMedia box.
It may well have pushed the boundaries of traditional journalism, the young man has kept some rules, refusing to display any political position, for fear of offending his "community".
And remains discreet about his income, which he derives from the monetization of his videos and from various partnerships - the most recent with Orange, for a subject on the recycling of smartphones.
A brand communication assumed, because it allows to finance independent reports.
Beneath his adolescent airs, Hugo Travers is a man in a hurry, betrayed by a speed of speech machine gun. The 2022 presidential election is fast approaching, publishing houses are knocking on his door, and he has already embarked on a new project: developing a smartphone application. In order to make information always more accessible, of course.