After 50 years at Radio-Canada, the hour of retirement has come for Michel Désautels, who will bid farewell to listeners next Sunday. His hushed voice, his unequaled general knowledge and his impeccable French will be missed by many of them. The magnitude of the task to replace him is colossal, almost impossible to achieve, whatever the legendary animator says, with a surprising humility, given the enviable career he has led.
“This job requires modesty, especially in radio. This is no place for big heads. Of course there are. But in general, they are quickly unhappy […] We must never lose sight of the fact that we are always less knowledgeable than our guests on the subjects on which we speak to them”, indicates the old sage, his back bent, his voice hoarse, but his mind remarkably sharp.
His departure marks the end of an era for public radio, after those of other veterans in the past year, such as Joël Le Bigot, Michel Lacombe or Jacques Beauchamp. “Of my generation, I was one of the last. All that’s left is Rene [Homier-Roy] “, points out the one who has just celebrated his 72 years, and who juggled with the idea of retirement for about five years.
The stars were aligned with the end of the tenth season of Desalts on Sunday. Journalist Janic Tremblay will inherit a tidy house when he succeeds him next fall: the ratings have never been so high.
Before announcing his departure last March, Michel Désautels made sure with management that the program that would replace his in the Sunday schedule would also be an information magazine focused on international news. It was the mission of Radio-Canada, he believed. “Providing information does not pay. And when you do it well, it’s even less so. The public broadcaster has a role to play,” says Michel Désautels, concerned about the vast cuts that the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, intends to make, if he is brought to power.
The Canadian Radio Spirit
Michel Désautels will have had to deal with different waves of cuts over the decades at Radio-Canada, under both the Conservatives and the Liberals. Desalts on Sunday paid the price in the final years of the Harper government. The show ended up with 35% of its original budget for overseas travel. “In recent years, the budget has gradually started to climb again. But we still haven’t returned to 100% of what we had, ”adds the host, who dreams of greater international coverage at Radio-Canada.
Has the state corporation turned away from its information mission? Some of them at least believe that entertainment takes up too much space on the air, like Denis Dubois, the outgoing vice-president of original content at Quebecor. He said in an interview with The Press last April that Véronique Cloutier should be on TVA, not Radio-Canada. An opinion that does not share Michel Désautels, he who animated free studio, program halfway between variety and cultural magazine, on Radio-Canada television in the early 1990s.
“Entertaining has always been part of Radio-Canada’s mission, along with informing and educating,” he recalls. If we drop entertainment programs, that means that we are depriving ourselves of part of the audience, and therefore of precious advertising revenue. If we want to review the system and increase the share of public financing to depend less on advertising, I have nothing against it. But I’m not sure that taxpayers will want to pay more out of pocket for Radio-Canada. Canadian citizens need to know that they are among those in developed countries who currently spend the least on their public broadcaster. »
Of my generation, I was one of the last. All that’s left is Rene [Homier-Roy].
Michel Désautels remains deeply attached to Radio-Canada, but he is annoyed by a certain laxity in the level of French spoken on the air. “There are certain animators that come to mind. Would you like me to give you names? I will not do it “, immediately specifies the host, too gentleman to break the sugar on colleagues.
Ironically, the one whose excellent command of the language is praised never obtained his college diploma (DEC) because he had taken his linguistics course at Cégep de Rosemont. “I couldn’t even pass the entrance test to work at Radio-Canada today, because you need at least a baccalaureate, and I don’t even have a DEC,” underlines Michel Désautels by displaying a smirk.
Prolific career
It is by a combination of circumstances that this former child actor, who played in the soap opera Cove Streetwill enter the French information service in Toronto in 1972. Noting the “ravages of assimilation” of Franco-Ontarians, Michel Désautels left the Queen City after four years knowing the importance of taking care of his French by waves.
Coming from a modest background, unlike many of his colleagues at the time, he nevertheless managed to impose himself on his return to the metropolis, quickly climbing the ranks. In the early 1980s, he was one of the presenters of the public affairs program Point with Jean-François Lépine and Gil Courtemanche. Still on television, he was the host of the first editions of what would later be renamed Race destination worlda cult show where several renowned filmmakers cut their teeth.
Then, in 2003, he took the helm of the comeback program on the Première Chaîne, a niche he occupied for 10 years: the ultimate consecration for this radio enthusiast. “I much prefer radio to TV. Even when I was young and playing in cove street, I didn’t want to become an actor. I always wanted to be a radio host, ”says the host, who for four years had been delivering a daily post on the morning show. All one morning on HERE Premiere.
At the same time, Michel Désautels will have published two novels, Smileys in 1998 and Next week I want to die in 2000. The first was about an African-American character from Atlanta, which at the time had generated no controversy. But would it be the same today, when the concept of cultural appropriation is at the heart of fiery debates?
“I would write that book again today. I don’t give a damn about it, these questions don’t bother me. I wouldn’t put a teepee on my land to have native evenings while cooking bannock, that goes without saying. But do you absolutely have to be trans to write a novel about trans people? Do you absolutely have to be tiled to write a book about tiled monsters? I find that we are sinking into a cul-de-sac, ”says Michel Désautels, who has no other retirement plans than that of publishing a third novel.