I call this article the columnist's hatred. The French chronicler—because he is indeed dealing with a French disease—is how he invents himself master of time, of the world, and above all of how he is doing. It's unbearable. Redact the chroniclers and tear out the buds!

All these columnists together form nothing more than a Café du Commerce. With references.

I take for example the opening of the antenna of France Culture in the morning. For 30 years, I have listened to France Culture every morning. I am what is called a France Culture aficionado. Culture Matin by Jean Lebrun was part of my DNA. I loved him until his political correctness and partisanship came to the fore with the war in Yugoslavia. Fortunately, he left the ship which he seemed to scuttle all alone.

But, whatever people say, and although this program looked like Titanic in the end, Culture Matin was indeed a France Culture program, I mean France Culture before the Laure Adler earthquake. Before France Culture became a branch of Les Inrockuptibles. Before France Culture only rhymes with news. Or worse, news.

Pierre Assouline after Lebrun tried to interview a guest. It takes time to interview someone. It takes time to feel at home, to give birth to an idea in front of everyone, etc. Unless you interview a politician. Ah yes it's true, in the morning on France Culture we receive a lot of politicians now. Jean Lebrun was the midget, and forgot at the end of his reign to read his notes or the books of his guests, or both. He sank into a proud narcissism. And his Court-Bouillon remained in draft form. But Pierre Assouline remained in the idea of ​​Culture Matin and was eager to give birth to the guest. After Assouline, everything ends up collapsing. It seems that some people at France Culture found that we fell asleep listening to it. And then he was not from the seraglio, not unionized so all that obviously gets on your nerves. After Assouline, the newspapers bloomed every thirty minutes, a real takeover, the 7:30 a.m. newspaper ends around 7:40 a.m. in the best case, before we had a column by a woman (parity, my good sir), and then we have the international press review, a sort of verbal battle that Cécile de Kervasdoué seems to be waging with herself, but above all with two viruses that are ubiquitous on the airwaves: cathophobia and papophobia. In the hate parade, cathophobia and papophobia come just behind Nicolas Sarkozy, which is to say the vulgarity in which this era delights. And the journalists of the newspapers who have a field day in the same vein and who prove besides to which point the government controls the media (1). The whole thing ends around 7:45 in the best of cases. There are ten-twelve minutes left for the guest to believe that he is going to say something before Olivier Duhamel, who is the panacea of ​​political correctness, intervenes. All this time for the news. To the extent of his speaking time, the guest almost becomes a columnist. The only one we would like to keep.

As if the news were going so fast… As if the news demanded that we go so fast!

Jean Lebrun should have ended up on France Inter, like his alter ego with a few years less, Nicolas Demorand, who ended up completely changing the morning show of France culture into a classic morning show like we have on France Inter or RTL – and to start better on France Inter afterwards, what an irony! Obviously, the door opened more and more and slammed to all the winds so that we even had a presenter from Canal Plus to take over. Did we ever think we'd fall so low? I, who was the first to pillory the last Lebrun and his Bosnian sidekick, would have begged him to come back if I had been threatened with having a Canal Plus presenter every morning on France Culture!

From Charybdis to Scylla! But since Laure Adler, we have taken a liking to sausages. The listener must not be bored, he must be kept awake, he must be connected to the world and to prevent him from zapping, we zape for him. Incorrigible people on the left who can't stand freedom. Incorrigible people on the left who think that man must always be educated. Moral liberalism also hides something… Liberalism always hides something whether moral or economic. It hides the end of man.

You should be able to say no. It would take a petition to bring Antoine Spire back to France Culture. Why ? Because Spire was the only on-air reporter who could interview Octario Paz, for example. Of course Laure Adler could do an interview of seduction as she has the secret. But no one can interview Octavio Paz like Antoine Spire, pushing him to his limits, extracting from him what the great author does not want to say, doing his job as a journalist with talent. But to do your job as a journalist with talent, you have to have it. I don't want to be mean here. It is not the goal. There are enough pseudo-comedians who spend their time being mean for no reason other than to make the cranks who populate the Internet laugh and who laugh like in a schoolyard… But isn't that the rule now? The settlement of permanent account.

There is still talent at France Culture. Voinchet is one, Couturier another, Angelier and so on, and some are even columnists and would do better to work a little to make a real show. Inserting a chronicle should also correspond to a specific need, to develop an interview in one way or another. Culture Matin has become the morning of France culture, and the commoners have taken power! It is the permanent reign of the commentary of the commentary. Most newspapers or magazines are already commentaries in themselves (what newspaper managers often call the added value of print media). We comment on the comment. It is the reign of the Café du commerce. It is certainly not the Agora that some people want us to believe because there are no exchanges. The worst being the political columnist. Hearing about Nicolas Sarkozy or Ségolène Royal all morning long is vulgar. And here again, we will not be exhaustive. Invite a writer whoever he is, invite a painter whoever he is, invite an artist whoever he is (avoiding all the same the varietyists) is never vulgar, his gaze will always print a vision of the world.

All these columnists refine their speeches so much, get so caught up in the game of the importance of these, what can I say? We don't want to cause too much trouble here.

I took as perspective France Culture and the morning, but everyone knows by listening to his own radio that the columnist took the place of choice. He is there to synthesize, to explain, to intelligently on the work of the listener. In my mind, the listener, especially that of France Culture does not want this synthetic syncretism, he is not reluctant to rise. But in fact, it is the life of the modern world which continues here, as if nothing had happened. We are told what to think, say, do. They take us for children; and for that the fathom is lowered. Because it is easier to educate downwards, because egalitarianism continues to reign.

(1) It is amusing to see this press always gloating about its superiority on the Internet and even establishing hierarchies within the press. Thus Olivier Duhamel, one morning, boasted of the quality of the information on France Culture and even ended his column by affirming that France Culture was not Here. Could he be wrong in executing such a big gap? But another morning, Cécile de Kervasdoué told us throughout her international press review about a rumor that the “whole world” shared — let us note here that personally I had never heard of it and that, afterwards, I I would be happy not to know anything about it — of an affair between Nicolas Sarkozy and one of his assistants and of Carla Bruni with a variety singer… The journalist thus spent her entire column (because it is nothing else) not tell us what the world was buzzing about and then in a burst of insane generosity, she deigned to reveal everything to us. I didn't feel the need to go buy Here after this review. I don't think Olivier Duhamel either.