Pascal Praud
Dandy from Nantes and ugly duckling
Cultivating the air of a Parisian dandy, Pascal Praud is nevertheless a pure product of Nantes. Born on September 9, 1964 in the city of the Dukes of Brittany, he spent his childhood there and fell in love with football, and in particular for FC Nantes, "his" club. As a child, he played there, just like his father, before becoming, in 2008, the director general of communication. Far from being the French counterpart of Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity as the left-wing press fantasizes, Pascal Praud takes advantage of a troubled political climate and growing censorship to take on the role of “spokesperson for the Marcels in bistro” and increase the audience.
It is therefore only natural that he has spent the vast majority of his career in sports journalism. But in recent years, the one we used to hear discussing around the round ball has come out of his flowerbeds to come and interfere in the political debate.
Already highly criticized by his peers within his specialty, in the same way as his former colleague Christian Jeanpierre, he wasted no time in multiplying his detractors who reproached him for a lack of legitimacy and questionable ethics. The former pillar of Téléfoot has become, year after year, one of the bridgeheads of the flagship CNews that Les Inrocks do not hesitate to describe, all shame drunk, as "French counterpart of Fox News". By transposing the codes of the third-half tussle to political debate, the journalist has reached the height of his notoriety while attracting the wrath of the bobocracy, which bitterly notes the displacement of the Overton window. Which is not to displease him, because, according to his words reported by a former employee of FC Nantes, “there is only one thing that matters: that we talk about you. Good or bad, but we have to talk about you. »
Education
Pascal Praud is a law graduate and a graduate of the Paris School of Journalism. He also took acting lessons at the Nantes Conservatory of Dramatic Arts.
History
After an internship at Ouest-France, he joined the sports department of TF1 in 1988 without having completed his journalism studies. He stayed there for about twenty years, during which he hosted the program “Téléfoot” alongside Thierry Roland and spoke on LCI. During this period, he tries to convince his bosses to give him another platform than sport, in vain. At the same time, he joined RTL.
On the airwaves of the rue Bayard station, he took part in the sports program "On refait le match", presented by Eugène Saccomano, as a columnist, and then presented his own program, "Tirs aux buts" .
In January 2008, he left the world of journalism to become general manager of the Football Club of Nantes, in particular in charge of communication and marketing. His record at the head of the Canaries is mixed and strongly criticized.
According to David Phelippeau, who then covered the club's news on Direct Matin and RMC, "during a match in Brest, he wanted to offer a jersey to the kop supporters who made the trip. He was received with a barrage of insults. Faced with this manifest disenchantment, Praud left office in March 2010, assuring that he "finished exhausted" and that he "got fed up".
Pascal Praud then returned to sports journalism. In addition to his status as a regular debater at RTL, he joined i>Télé, on the occasion of the 2010 Football World Cup, to present the program “L’œil de Praud” every morning. From the start of the school year, he resumed the daily “13 h Foot” and “20 h Foot” on the same channel (“13 h Foot” will be relegated to a Sunday broadcast from 2012).
As for RTL, he joins Christian Ollivier to co-present the “Multiplex RTL-L’Équipe” every Saturday evening as well as “Le Grand match de Ligue 1” every Sunday evening.
When Eugène Saccomano retired at the start of the 2012 school year, the debater Praud became the leader of the show “On refait le match”. He still hosts it every Saturday under the name "We redo the match with Pascal Praud", and also presents on the same airwaves "The News of the past week" (still a sports program) as well as the "Multiplex Ligue 1".
At the start of the 2014 school year, he replaced Léa Salamé at the presentation of the political debate program “Ça se dispute”, in which Éric Zemmour and Nicolas Domenach participate. A choice described as “surprising and clever” by Léa Salamé. The leaders of RTL finally gave Praud a chance, unlike those of the first channel. On the side of viewers, his way of presenting (haughty and interventionist) is strongly criticized. As a good actor, Praud knows how to play it to stir up passions and give his shows the warm atmosphere of a family dinner of which he would be the bon vivant patriarch. Sometimes at the risk of playing around and overplaying, to the chagrin of some columnists and guests.
On RTL, for this same back-to-school period, he also delivers a short mood post on a topical subject in Yves Calvi's morning show, "Le Praud de l'info", every day at 8:30 a.m.
Very close to Serge Nedjar and Bolloré, Praud is one of the big winners of the restructuring of the former i>Télé. From 2016 and shortly after the long and costly strike that decimated almost the entire editorial staff, he presents L'Heure des Pros, whose panel of regular columnists includes Élisabeth Lévy, Laurent Joffrin and Ivan Rioufol. The program's characteristic freedom of tone, and a stage that leans more to the right than in competing broadcasts, meet with certain success. The program was, before the arrival with fanfare of Éric Zemmour at the end of 2019, the most watched on the channel, bringing together 200,000 spectators during the 8/9 p.m. time slot. The Hour of the Pros remains however in the sights of the CSA, which regularly receives reports concerning the remarks made during the program (no less than 1200 during the year 2018). A program of denunciation undoubtedly orchestrated.
Since August 2018, he has provided the free-to-air program “Les udieurs ont la parole” on RTL from Monday to Friday, from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.
Notorious Facts
In October 2001, Bernard Tapie, then President of Olympique de Marseille, met Pascal Praud, a TF1 journalist, in a clothing store in Paris.
The testimony of Pascal Praud: “He came up to me and started insulting me: ‘Praud, you’re just an asshole! Sunday, at Téléfoot, you said that OM had used in five months almost as many coaches as Nantes in 45 years. You are even worse than the others. I won't talk to you about my life again!” To which I replied: “Hello, Mr. Tapie”. And he started again: "You're nice, you don't talk to me anymore, you're just an asshole!" It was starting to annoy me and I replied: “You are a BIG asshole”. At that point, he came forward and peached and kicked me in the parts. Afterwards, we were separated but there were still five good minutes of insults. He told me that the next time I came to Marseille, they would wait for me. »
For his part, Bernard Tapie claims to have "simply grabbed the journalist by the neck" in order to "push him out". Following this altercation, Pascal Praud filed a complaint for assault and battery against Bernard Tapie.
In November 2013, he divided the world of football by vigorously attacking the French football team after their play-off match lost against Ukraine. For him, these Blues have nothing to do with France and the jersey. He judges that everyone hates them, and that it is quite legitimate.
When France won and qualified after the second leg, many would call him to account...
On November 3, 2017, as Rost tried to defend footballer Patrice Evra, guilty of kicking a supporter of his club, pointing out that he had suffered racial slurs throughout his his career, Praud comes out of his hinges: “Stop! I interrupt you. Stop putting racist insults all the time on the debate! It's intolerable ! ". The naturalized Togolese rapper pretends to leave the set before changing his mind. By displaying his imperviousness to tearful anti-racism, Praud very quickly became suspect in the eyes of the intelligentsia and the non-natives.
On May 6, 2019, Pascal Praud and Élisabeth Lévy provoked the ire of the guest, the environmental activist Claire Nouvian, co-founder of Place Publique and candidate for the European elections, when the former pretended to minimize the impact of global warming ( "It's here! Global warming... Minus three degrees this morning in Yvelines, minus one degree yesterday in Troyes. Attention, sensitive subject, we are not kidding with global warming.") while the second declares a climatosceptic position should to be able to be heard (“The word skeptic in science is not an insult and, on the contrary, it is a virtue.”). Nouvian's outraged reaction, speechless and rolling eyes, soon made the rounds of the media, even as a montage of the algarade circulated on Twitter and showing the guest manhandled and violently silenced by his opponents, of "climate deniers", doubled as "machos". A second montage, more faithful to the spirit of the complete sequence, surfaces and puts this version of the facts into perspective. However, this episode marked Praud's symbolic banishment and incriminating articles soon appeared in the mainstream press concerning the "populist threat" that his show would represent.
Praud does not hesitate to vilify his detractors on his show and roundly attacks Daniel Schneidermann. While Élisabeth Lévy, a regular guest on the Heure des Pros set, quotes the name of the journalist, the host stops her in her speech: “Do not quote these people that no one knows! You give them publicity! When will you understand that these people do not represent anyone! »
The editor-in-chief of Causeur replies that the person concerned “still has a column in Liberation! ". And Praud to add: “But Liberation does not represent anyone, no one reads them, I kill myself saying that. It is 80,000 people who buy it in France in the morning […] It is a very good newspaper if you will. But that means nothing. Nobody cares. Our show has an audience. Because there are people who are tired of this political correctness, and who come to listen to something else. Indeed, the audience for L’Heure des Pros peaked at 300,000 viewers, i.e. three times more than the readership of Liberation. Schneidermann reacts to the sequence in his daily column, deploring the blessed era when a media cartel could banish undesirables, among whom would be Praud: "A small group of established media held the keys to access to space audience. It was therefore relatively easy to banish from it an author, an artist, a theory, a political party that one considered, by consensus, outside the circle of the debate – for example, negationists or conspiracy theorists. Without the Internet, climate skepticism would never have gone very far. These social networks have changed everything. The circle of debate has widened, its borders are now blurred, shifting, themselves debated. »
Private life
Pascal Praud is the son of an office supply salesman. He is the father of four daughters (Morgane, Tiphaine, Lou and Faustine), born from a previous union. He lives in the VIIth arrondissement of Paris. His current partner, Catherine, is a former professional basketball player who lives in Charente.
He said it
"It's a colonization in reverse", about the takeover of PSG by Qatar, January 19, 2013 on Yahoo! Football
“I promise to be an impartial arbiter”, on August 29 when it premiered in “Ça se dispute”, on i>Télé
“Emmanuel Macron, 36: an oversight by the media class. Today he is Baron Emmanuel Macron, Mozart of finance”, RTL, “Le Praud de l’info”, 08/28/2014.
“François Hollande stammers so much that we want to clean his glasses”, RTL, “Le Praud de l’info”, 08/26/2014.
“When I was at TF1, he was, at the time, the president of PSG, I covered Marseille more particularly. From this period dates our animosity. But Denisot is not as nice as you think! », September 2008, West-France
“Sometimes I get clumsy, I agree. But, I don't feel like I'm unloved. On the contrary, many people tell me: continue, tell President Kita that we are with you. I don't feel in danger in the streets of Nantes... Why anyway? », September 2008, West-France
“It was a mistake. Discussing with agents, players, being immersed twenty-four hours a day in this atmosphere, I was not made for that. A locker room is incomprehensible for someone who has not played pro: you do not have the codes, you are not in your place and you are not good ", about his passage at FC Nantes, 07/06/2014.
“At TF1, I was in a formatted exercise. Today, on TV or on the radio, I have greater editorial freedom. You're 50, you're a little freer, that's normal. And then, after Nantes, I came back to the profession with more appetite. Writing, speaking, thinking, reflecting, arguing: I realized that I really liked that”, Le Nouvel Obs, 07/06/2014.
“Good. Tax evasion is a national sport, and an international one, obviously. Good. Do the people who practiced this tax evasion (note: Football Leaks) feel that they did it in the rules? […] When you have a lot of money, yes, I think that people who have a lot of money say “well, I'm going to put money in Switzerland, I'm going to put money in Belgium, I'm going to try to evade tax. », « 13h Foot », i>Télé, 03/12/2016.
“The pressures, well they exist and it is the basis of journalists [sic] and, then not the one you may have just said, there are pressures which are perfectly unacceptable and in particular when the integrity journalists is called into question or in any case is attacked, but on the other hand pressure is the daily life of a journalist and it is, I want to say, it is simply up to him to be able to resist it. », Ibid
“It’s only TV, it goes in one ear, it comes out the other. It's not the College de France, what I do. », Marianne, 16/05/2019.
“When I was on TF1, I was 100% TF1; when I was at FC Nantes, I was 100% FC Nantes. And today at CNews, I am 100% Bolloré (…) Loyalty is a value that I place above everything because I hate traitors. », The World, 05/31/2019.
“You don’t want to attack the public service, which… I meant indoctrinates… In any case, it’s propaganda! You don't want to tackle this! Nobody dares to do that. We have to go ! Listen to all the comedians of this beautiful public station. Listen to the editorial line”, L’Heure des Pros, CNews, 19/10/2019.
They said it
"Pascal Praud, it's a bit of the binoclard of recess that we want to listen to because we pity his little sadness which risks being turn into funny sourness. “, “Socrates”, 90minutes.fr
“He does not leave anyone indifferent. He annoys with his boastful side, he amuses with his bombast, and often surprises with his disproportionate reactions (…) Pascal Praud begins his day with a press review. Director of communication obliges, he peels everything. At the slightest criticism - in his view unjustified - he pulls out his phone. It is often 9:30 a.m. “But why are you writing that? You are really big children, you journalists, ”he reproaches his detractor in the morning. One day, ulcerated by a paper on the possible sale of the club, Praud blocks so that the author does not put a layer on the local TV”, David Phelippeau, 21/01/09, 20 Minutes
“What I don’t understand is that he spends his time in the hallways asking you (Cyril Hanouna) to do this. He spends his week asking us: “When are you coming to mess with us?” I don't understand why when you go there, it's all blocked”, Énora Malagré following Pascal Praud's annoyance when Hanouna had invaded her set. D8, “Don’t touch my post”, 06/26/2014.
“An effective pen with a sometimes grandiloquent and bombastic style, he goes on papers: one day, he is moved by the silence of his colleagues after an outing by Michel Platini urging the Brazilians, Mondial oblige, to stop their demonstration; another, he talks - by summoning Jaurès - on the case of a famous attacker of the Blues surprised by a tabloid in gallant company”, Alexandre Le Drollec, Le Nouvel Obs, 07/06/2014.
"About the arrival of Jean-Marc Morandini, he said to a journalist:"You know the company, it's like a monarchy. There is a king who decides and the others obey. The king is the director, the employees obey. If they decided to put Morandini, no discussion. The bosses are the kings, we don’t argue’.” But for his interlocutors, the discussion ended in the office of Serge Nedjar, the new editorial boss, installed by Vincent Bolloré. It was Pascal Praud who took them there. The editorial staff begins to mistrust him. He will become a “mole” in the eyes of the strikers. Regularly present at general meetings, he has the courage to make his voice heard, opposed to the strike. “The fact that he was against the strike was not a problem, it is his right”, reports an ex-striker. But his back and forth between the room where the strikers were and Serge Nedjar's office did not go unnoticed. », France Info, 13/11/2017.
"He was not in his place", judges a former employee of the club, interviewed by FranceInfo. “People didn’t like him for everything he represented, this Parisian ‘m’as-tu-vu side. », Ibid.
“Pascal Praud is one of the major incarnations of the channel. He is a very intelligent and cultured person. He likes to cause ruptures on his set and is not afraid that his debates will be agitated. This gives a lot of authenticity to his program. But he has opponents around him who do not share the same opinions at all. », Serge Nedjar, editorial director of CNews, Télé 2 Semaines, 06/11/2018.
“It’s not the College de France. It is a show that surfs on current topics, with life and great freedom. And today, there is more conservative thinking, and less politically correct. He himself defines himself as "very conservative on culture, French, school", and open to PMA and GPA. », Le Parisien, 25/11/2018.
“It is in tune with the concerns of viewers, in line with their expectations. For me he is one of the most impressive journalists of the moment. », Gérald-Brice Viret, director of the antennas of Canal+, Le Monde, 23/05/2019.
“He is a cultured, likeable man. But out of cynicism or boasting or ideological conviction, he organizes the worst of the media circus. He is better than that, but becomes a Zemmour who has not written books. », Claude Askolovitch, Le Parisien, 03/21/2020.
"He thinks for the viewer first and foremost. He has that in him, it allows him to fall right all the time. Where people are a little mistaken, they think he's a redneck when he's a real scholar, an avid reader. » Léa Salamé, Ibid.
“No! No ! You, your job was to be a cook at the start, and then after that you veered towards sport, especially football and now you have placed yourself in this thing by pretending to have skills that you do not have at all . », Christian Clavier, L’Heure des Pros, July 3, 2020.
Photo credit: RTL (DR)
