France Beaudoin, rebel? It’s probably not the first word that comes to mind when you think of her. Meeting with a facilitator for whom insubordination does not exclude a full smile.
In 1992, a very young France Beaudoin took her first steps into the marvelous world of the media as a researcher for the CKAC morning show. One morning when a crisis occurs in Russia, the researcher must find someone, somewhere, who could comment on the events. “But you understand that I didn’t know any Russian sociologists. »
At dawn, she telephones each of the Tretiaks who have the misfortune to find themselves in the phone book, looking for someone who has family in Russia. And since it’s 4:30 a.m., several of them offer him slightly irritated answers. “But I’m finally going to come across a real sociologist,” recalls the host with that big smile full of candor that is hers.
Although she had her way, her bosses would later make her understand that waking up the entire Russian-Montreal community in order to find a worker might not be the preferred method. Will the apprentice remember her lesson? On the surface, yes. But curbing his bursts of enthusiasm? Never !
France rock’n’roll
“In fact, my girlfriend, under her very cool looks, is certainly one of the most rock’n’roll women I know, in her way of seeing life, in her way of seeing everyday life”, once declared her lover Vincent Graton. France Beaudoin, rock’n’roll?
The main interested party specifies at the microphone of Just between you and me that his boyfriend likes to describe her as rebellious. To be told that “we do it the same way because we have always done it the same way”? This is an excellent way to make France rock’n’roll appear.
But beyond this allergy to the status quo, the insubordination of the pilot ofLive from the universe manifests itself above all in its obstinacy to deploy everything in order to highlight the part of magic that life conceals.
In September 2019, when his team had to find a replacement for a guest who was then facing allegations of sexual misconduct, there was no question of being satisfied with simply saving the show with Normand Brathwaite as his replacement. . Richard Séguin and his song to last forever, with a hundred singers? There, we talk!
“The idea is always to take the opportunity and do something about it, not to be a victim, not to be crushed,” she says. We have to magnify what is happening. I always have the reflex to ask myself: how are we going to do better than what we planned, in the shit where we are here? »
Kindness is not a weakness
While she is piloting the cultural magazine in Sherbrooke Life in Estrie, her first real contract (from 1993 to 1997), France Beaudoin was told one day by the big boss of a Montreal station that she was “perfect for the region”, that she had “a regional look, a regional thinking”, in short, that it does not have what it takes to carve out a place for itself on the national airwaves. Ayoye.
His reaction ? “I just told him that I didn’t agree. A few years earlier, when her boss in the TQS newsroom in the Eastern Townships asked her, during her job interview, how she would respond if a stressed colleague spoke to her harshly, France replied: “I hope that you will apologize. »
You will have understood: France Beaudoin is nice because it is in her nature, but also because she does not believe in the usefulness of acrimony. “As a woman, I had to take my place, I looked like a sweet little girl,” recalls the producer who runs Pamplemousse Media, the box behind Mammoth, I am coming to you And We’ll tell each other. “Often, I’ve been asked, ‘How are you going to decide? How are you going to impose yourself [comme patronne] ?” Well I’ll just say it. »
say no to fear
In 2005, France Beaudoin agreed to host a new talk show at Radio-Canada, Kisses from France, to which half of the directory of the Union of artists had said no. She had however announced that she was leaving TVA not for competition, but for a sabbatical year. Two bosses, at each of the stations, will warn her about the mud that could splash on her, and which will splash on her when her salary is revealed in the media, a controversy she returns to for a rare time during our interview. .
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
France Beaudoin, in conversation with our journalist
Why did she accept this contract, when she knew that she would be made to pay the price? “My mother told me: ‘Is it fear that will decide your life?’ “, she recalls. A question that still guides her to this day.
Is kindness softness, as many seem to believe? “I think on the contrary that you can achieve much more, in certain cases. I admire those who go there with their fists on the table, it takes a lot, it’s complementary. What I don’t like is that we undervalue those who are supposedly nice. I think you can be nice, say what you have to say and still go your own way. »
Three quotes from our interview
About the same faces we keep seeing on TV
As a producer, France Beaudoin says she puts a lot of effort into bringing people we rarely see to the screen. “Yes, we see a lot of the same people on TV. But if we are well, well frank, when we do For takeout, there is a difference in listening results between those that are known and those that are not. What I believe in is an average of the two, that one [les connus] shed light on others. »
About his friendship with France Castel
It was France Beaudoin who asked the actress to co-host with her two girls in the morning in 2000. ” [France] gave me lousse, permission not to be perfect. As I didn’t think I was the best at doing this, a mistake seemed terrible to me, I had the impression of being unmasked, it was the end of the world. If I hadn’t spent those years with her, I think I could have let go of that job. »
About why she refuses to celebrate her ratings
The host prefers not to draw too much attention to her successes, so as not to be handcuffed to them. “The first time we touched the million to Live from the universe, there were some who said: “We are going to send a press release.” No no no ! We keep it the same, we don’t say it, it’s perfect. What we want is not to say that we have a million, it is to have the freedom to create, to have fun. We’re in the sweet spot of creative freedom. »