Series More beautiful life resumes more beautifully… and in a manner even more beautiful ! This Monday January 8, 2024, TF1 will kick off the nineteenth season of the Marseille soap, which will be relocated to Allauch (Bouches-du-Rhône) for the occasion. The story will resume a year and a half after the end of the series on France 3, and will evoke the destruction of the Mistral district following a terrible landslide, which cost the lives of many characters. The few remaining protagonists have changed their lives and neighborhoods, and are rebuilding in a completely new neighborhood close to Marseille. In the casting, we will always find Laurent Kérusoré, Anne Décis, Sylvie Flepp, Jérôme Bertin, Léa François, Marie Réache, Marie Hennerez or even Stéphane Hénon and Lola Marois, but Cécilia Hornus, who is also back, had the disillusionment of returning… without her man !
Indeed, married since 2017 to Thierry Ragueneauwhom she met on the set of More beautiful life in 2004, Cécilia Hornus was happy to work with him again from 2020. After fourteen years of absence, the character of François Marci was recalled by the authors to return to wreak havoc in the Marci clan. An intrigue over two years, which ended with the death of Roland Marci in October 2022, a few weeks before the finale. The owner of the bar Le Mistral died of a heart attack in the middle of Place du Mistral. For the series finale, Thomas was the owner of the Marci, and François, Léo and Kilian were the co-owners of the Mistral. On a sentimental level, Blanche and François remarried, 16 years after their divorcejust as Kilian married Betty Solano.
“Maybe he’ll be called back later.”
But unfortunately, Blanche Marci will return alone in More beautiful life : the authors made the decision to send Francis back to New Orleans, and completely turn Blanche’s life upside down. She will return from a long stay in New Orleans with her new ex-husband, and will no longer be a French teacher. A new life, and new bonds that she will create with Luna and Eric, who, like her, will become single again and will have left their respective jobs. But with Télé-Loisirs, Cécilia Hornus does not hide her bitterness at no longer filming with her husband, who had a hard time being eclipsed from the series: “It’s a shame. There’s a bit of regret, obviously. François has come back quite a bit in the last two years. He has links with the Marci clan, a history which is strong. These are editorial choices. Maybe he’ll be called back later. They needed some core. Obviously there was a bit of nostalgia. It’s a shame, we would have liked to take the train together. We made some great sequences for several years.” remembers the actress who just celebrated her 60th birthday a few weeks ago.
Many absent, many new
Thierry Ragueneau is unfortunately not the only actor to have been unwillingly excluded from the casting of More beautiful life : if some did not wish to come back, like Pierre Martot, Pauline Bression, Bryan Trésor and Rebecca Hampton, others would have liked but were sidelined. This is the case of Grégory Questel, Éléonore Sarrazin, Laurie Bordesoules, Serge Dupire, Alexandre Fabre, Lara Menini, Caroline Bourg, Caroline Riou, Théo Bertrand, Boubacar Kabo, Charles Schneider, Stéphanie Paréja and Thibaud Vaneck. We bet that these emblematic faces will one day return to say hello to soap opera aficionados…